It's what we can do with competitive athletes.
So you can profile someone and essentially estimate
their risk. And you can say, well, okay, you
might not have passed out now, but looking at
this, if you get much stronger, we think you
probably will. So let's address it. Hi, Sinead.
It's my pleasure to have you on Evidence Strong
Show. Please briefly introduce yourself. Hello.
No, thanks for having me. So yeah, I'm Sinead.
I am a performance nutritionist and physiologist
and I work... Primarily, well, I've sort of always
worked primarily in strength, power sports, weight
making sports and kind of extreme ultra adventures.
And yeah, now primarily in weightlifting, at
least from the nutrition perspective. What I
care about is kind of how the body works and
how you get it to do what you want it to do.
Awesome. So today we are talking about weightlifters'
blackouts. So let's start with some kind of definition.
Yeah. So typically on a clean and jerk, usually
once the clean's been stood up or partially stood
up. up before the jerk someone passes out essentially
either completely and just fails backwards or
just gets dizzy and has to drop the bar because
you know they're seeing stars and the world is
swirling why does it happen so in many ways we
don't know but in that there's no form you know
there's no research out there that says these
are the xyz causes what we've done is said well
mechanistically like if we think about how the
body works what could it be and then If it does
happen to someone regularly, cool. Can we test
those parameters? See what one it's likely to
be, address it, and does it fix it? What I'm
going to take away for a moment is obviously
just hitting your artery. That is going to send
you... out regardless so that's a technique piece
but if we're thinking no technically you've done
a lovely clean but you've passed out there are
a few reasons when we think about how the body
works and what it's doing when it does a clean
that might be likely so the first thing to think
about or maybe the main thing to think about
is when you are cleaning a near maximal weight
your lower body is working really hard if you
are a weightlifter you have a lot of muscle relative
to your total body size in your button in your
legs and they are doing that clean and so what
will happen in that situation is you get all
the blood rushing to those working muscles because
you're asking those muscles to do a huge amount
of work i .e produce a massive amount of energy
so that you can actually move that load so you
get a very high proportion of the blood into
your button legs so you have a lower proportion
than normal going to your brain lack of oxygen
to the brain is what causes you to pass out so
if we think about it like that there are a few
things that we think could be causing someone
to be susceptible to that. The first, dehydration.
If you are dehydrated, you have less blood volume.
So if you've got less blood volume and most of
that volume is going to your legs, even less
is going to your brain, you're more likely to
pass out. So dehydration, we think, is a major
factor or potential factor. If someone has low
blood pressure anyway, which can be a consequence
of dehydration, but someone can have low blood
pressure for other reasons. Again, this is not...
so much about blood volume. It's about their
body's capacity to get it to their brain quickly.
So someone does a clean, they stand up, they
can't pump the blood to their brain fast enough,
they pass out. Then on top of those two things,
if someone is dehydrated and or has naturally
low blood pressure or both, they're definitely
going to pass out. What will further delay that
is say someone has done a clean that's maybe
not so pretty and they've grind it up against
a longer period of time with less blood and oxygen.
to the brain more blood and oxygen to those working
leg muscles higher likelihood of passing out
so the time piece is is important as well like
how how long are you stuck at the bottom with
everything going to your leg muscles and your
butt to be like stand up stand up stand up less
and less potentially going to your brain so then
what can layer into that is something that we're
we're looking at as well is your blood glucose
levels so low blood glucose or high blood glucose
can potentially delay reaction times again if
you've got a reaction time, which means that
you are in the working part of the clean for
longer, potentially less blood and oxygen to
the brain pass out. And again, some people are
going to be more or less sensitive to this. Why
glucose levels will influence reaction time?
How does it happen? Because glucose powers the
brain and glucose powers neurons and your movement
depends on the nervous signals telling your legs,
arms, et cetera, to move. So if that signal,
and so your reaction times are... slower, your
movement and coordination can be off. Your research
at the moment is what are the optimal blood glucose
levels for people playing esports, like Formula
One drivers, where reaction time is everything
and boxers as well, actually. But you can apply
that in kind of any setting where rapid coordinated
movement is really important for maximal force.
Okay. And why high blood sugar? Because, you
know, weightlifters snuck on lollies, powerlifters
snuck on lollies also while they're competing.
So would... Could that be detrimental and how?
Same for most things. There's kind of an optimal
window where you can have too much of a good
thing. I will say that I've never actually come
across a weightlifter with too high blood glucose
in this scenario. That's more theoretical. Particularly
if individuals have made weight by reducing carbohydrate
intake, it's much more likely that they're going
to have low blood glucose rather than high blood
glucose. Particularly, you've only got your out
of window. Adrenaline has played in on top. You've
already lifted. And again, it does depend how
dependent you are in particular on glucose and
how much you've managed to consume. But yeah,
too much can also slow. High blood glucoses,
high persistent blood glucoses is suboptimal,
as is low persistent blood glucose. So it's kind
of like a working window. All right. How about
the belt? Again, this is very much observational.
But certainly if someone's belt is too tight,
you're more likely to pass out. Because again,
you've got a huge amount of... blood pressure
pushing it down to your legs it's not going to
come back up as quickly particularly with that
rapid change in from being low to the ground
to being high to the ground which causes a lot
of people to pass out anyway because you get
a temporary imbalance essentially in blood pressure
so if you're you're moved you're standing up
and you've essentially got an obstruction to
your blood getting back up to your brain it's
potentially gonna not be good okay so we covered
dehydration blood pressure low blood pressure
time how long the person gets up from the clean
and glucose levels and potentially the belt also
anything else and potentially aerobic fitness
as well so where which part of your aerobic system
is your weakest part so we don't often think
about aerobic fitness when it comes to weight
lifting and it's not really about your absolute
fitness it's more about so your aerobic fitness
or your the way your body can use oxygen in exercise
is dependent on three things. How good you are
at breathing in oxygen and getting that into
your blood. How good, so that's your uptake.
So you're like respiratory capacity. How good
your heart is at pumping it around your body.
And then how good your muscles are at using it.
And even if you're the fittest person in the
world, one of those three elements is why you're
not even fitter. And theoretically, for example,
from a dizziness perspective, and again, this
is all very hypothetical. We're thinking, very
mechanistic it is research we want to do it's
not research we've done but theoretically so
if someone's weakness is their ability of their
muscles to to utilize oxygen i wouldn't think
that would impact dizziness because that's not
impacting the oxygen to your brain your muscles
will feel like hell and you probably will struggle
if you've only got two minutes to get back if
you know you're following yourself but you're
probably not gonna get dizzy i wouldn't expect
anyway but for example if you're really bad at
breathing in oxygen and all the oxygen you have
had has just gone to your working muscles muscles,
you're going to, even when you stand up from
the clean, breathing in with the barbell sat
there, you might not get enough oxygen in to
keep your brain working and you might pass out.
Or similarly, if we're thinking about that blood
pressure piece, if your heart is relatively weak,
then it's going to have, it might have trouble
when you've just cleaned a heavy load, then you've
stood up really quickly, particularly if your
belt's tight, to pump enough blood to your brain
to keep the oxygen there. So yeah, there is an
intersection there. between your aerobic fitness
and potentially your physical capacity. Could
we just touch on how to... potentially train
these three components for weightlifters so very
specifically you know that the minimal required
dose that every weightlifter should consider
how how we would think about that yeah so i think
and again so you kind of first want to know where
your limitation is because you kind of don't
want to be doing necessarily something for everything
as a weightlifter because you don't want to fatigue
yourself in that regards to the detriment of
your weightlifting And also, you will get some...
energetic system training just from doing the
training you're doing so it's not about improving
your overall fitness by that much but it's making
sure you do have that top end because in your
training every day you're not maxing out I hope
so you know you need to be able to max out and
have the energetic systems to do that and to
recover between sets so and between training
sessions so I would say you know if you're like
you know what I'm just unfit like my heart's
not great like I know I'm just I know I'm just
not a fit person outside weightlifting then I
would say you know probably the thing you should
do is just some low intensity exercise once a
week so maybe 20 to 30 minutes of exercise where
you could still hold a conversation like it's
that gentle and what we're looking for here when
we're doing aerobic training for weightlifters
is how can we put some stress on in this case
the cardiovascular system with minimal stress
on trunk arms and legs so the two modalities
that I would typically recommend weightlifters
use you don't need to use both one or the other
would be an echo bike or an assault bike so the
bikes where you're using your arms and legs or
swimming the reason being your heart is having
to work to power all four limbs but each of those
limbs doesn't relatively speaking have to do
much work because they're all contributing a
little bit to the stress on the heart whereas
say for example if you're just on a stationary
bike so your arms aren't working well you've
only got two legs that have to create enough
stress on the heart. So they have to work relatively
harder. Whereas if you've got that workload spread
between arms and legs, they don't have to work
as hard. So yeah, I always recommend things that
use four limbs. I do not recommend running for
weightlifters, like poor knees anyway, add on
running on top, not usually a great idea. I'm
roaring. So the flexion and extension on the
back, I think is for most weightlifters, particularly
if you know, you're strong enough to be competitive.
I think the load on the back is problem. there
even if you've got good technique I just think
that that flexion and extension on the back is
potentially problematic when you're then sort
of you know using your back for sort of all your
lifting as well theoretically yes though theoretically
a great way to stress out the heart but yeah
I just think that the stress on the back is usually
a bit too much awesome if your limitation is
more likely respiratory so your ability to get
oxygen kind of into the blood that's kind of
yucky sub -threshold intervals so kind of four
sets four minutes on four minutes off with different
intensities depending how fit you are and and
kind of where you are at in sort of a cycle of
that training but it's those kind of it's that
it's the sub -threshold intervals and there you
definitely want to be doing it probably on a
on an echo bike or an assault bike because that's
gonna have relatively the the least fatiguing
impact on the limbs but you definitely when you
do something like that you definitely need to
consider that in terms of is this going to have
a detrimental impact on my training can i actually
recover from it what's the sort of relative benefit
whereas with the zone two stuff you're fine like
you know you're not doing you're not doing sort
of you know iron man two hours on the bike you're
doing 20 to 30 minutes like you'll be fine do
that and go for a long walk every day and you're
fine it's not going to detrimentally impact it's
probably going to just improve your recovery
by getting more blood flow around the body but
those sub -threshold intervals you do need to
think a bit more intelligently about Like, you
know, I wouldn't I wouldn't say come in in the
morning, do those intervals and then this afternoon
do whatever your technical lifting is, followed
by a load of heavy squats and pulls. Like that's
that's asking for sort of face first asleep for,
you know, three days afterwards hobbling along.
So, you know, you've got to be a bit strategic
about that. So how would you place it in the
training program? I would say do it on. a recovery
day so ideally say if you're lifting five days
a week have it on one of the other two days and
it's not so I would say have it do it in the
morning of that day because then you've got probably
at least 24 hours if you're doing your lifting
session the next morning to kind of recover from
it it's not so much of a problem the fact that
you might have lifted last night or whatever
but sort of doing it that morning so you've then
got a day to recover is is probably and also
so that then later in the day if you do recovery
activity you can go and do your, I don't know,
sauna or whatever it is, gentle walk in the sun
to make you happy, that sort of thing. You can
do that later that day. What do you think about
adding it after the session before the rest day?
So would that be something to consider? It would.
I think that would definitely be an individual
discussion. So the things it would depend on
would be how fatigued are you after your session?
So can you actually hit the stimulus required
in those intervals? Placing like the zone two
or whatever, the easy stuff after a session,
that's no problem. But with the intervals, can
you actually do them? And will... That's one
thing. Can you do them? The other thing to consider
is can you then recover from that increased load?
So, you know, you can kind of be like, well,
now I've kind of got it all out the way. I've
got 36 hours to recover. But stress isn't kind
of linear in terms of training. Like if you kind
of tip someone over the edge, it takes proportionally
a lot more to like. recover from so can they
recover from it and kind of closely linked to
that will they essentially have not get maximal
benefit from their training session because they've
added another stress on top which has meant their
body's just gone oh hell no essentially and you
kind of don't it almost ignores that stimulus
from training in terms of the recovery and adaptation
so yeah if someone is like super young and bouncy
and you know seems to be able to like kill themselves
every day and still recover and accelerate in
their progression faster than you would ever
think. A, that person probably doesn't need the
subthroat shoulder. Say they did. You could probably
shove it at the end of a training session. But
I would say the more advanced you are, the more
you know you need to prioritize recovery, the
more value you'll probably get from splitting
it. Awesome. Anything for the muscles? So the
muscle utilization, yes. So I say whether you
need to address that or not, that's going to
be... At least, and again, this is very what
we assume, not what we know, if we can know anything
about exercise. But what I would assume with,
and what, yeah, my theory. that again hopefully
we'll test one properly test one day in some
robust research but my theory would be the muscle
utilization if that's an issue that you have
the time you would address that or need to address
it would be if it seems to be impairing your
capacity within a session so what i mean by that
is can you recover between sets because your
ability of your muscles to use oxygen is essentially
how you can do one set and then hit another set
rather than just looking at the bar and not being
able to lift it on sort of set two or three,
because ultimately all movement is aerobic. It
might not be aerobic in the minute, you know,
lifting is not aerobic during the lift, that
it needs way too much energy, way too quickly.
The aerobic system doesn't do that. It's anaerobic,
but to recover from the anaerobic effort needs
oxygen. So you do a set, the set will become
aerobic if you're doing like 10 to 15 reps, but
you know, weightlifters, not bodybuilders. Say
you do sort of one, two, three reps. That's not
really going to be hugely in the moment aerobic,
relatively speaking. But if you want to do that
one, two, three reps again, your muscles need
to recover between the sets and that is aerobic.
Potentially, if your muscle utilization of oxygen
is poor, you might need to address it to recover.
I'm not actually sure in reality how often you
might see that because the training you do will
also train your body's, your muscle's ability
to use oxygen between sets. So you kind of build
that with your fitness. I would say that's probably,
there will be some individuals out there. There's
a couple of people I've seen who I suspect it
might be the case in, but to a degree you're...
sort of your weightlifting training kind of trains
that. And I would say if it's something, if you
do feel like you struggle to recover between
sets, then whether it's that or whether it's
something like your anaerobic, like your glycolytic
capacity isn't great or whatever, actually maybe
it would improve if you just introduced some
EMOMs rather than doing cardio per se. That might
be enough of a stimulus to get what you need
for weightlifting. But I'm not sure in that regard.
Definitely need to do some more playing to figure
that out for sure. But I would say, yeah, something
like an EMOMS and things like that, which are
going to get people probably more anaerobically
robust and potentially that recovery muscle utilization
piece as well. Anything with nutrition? We didn't
even touch food yet, but would you have something
to add with nutrition? Yeah, so I mean, from,
I would say it's obviously on the dizziness side,
always be hydrated. Dizziness aside, hydration
is actually really, really important to force
production, so power. So you need to be hydrated
to lift well and lift well consistently in whether
it's training or whether it's competition. So
hydration should always be a focus. Carbohydrates,
because they are the fuel for lifting heavy or
lifting repeatedly because your body needs energy
fast. The only thing that produces energy fast
is carbohydrates. And so you need to eat sufficient
carbohydrates and sufficient carbohydrates plays
into all those energy systems as well, because
it will allow you to push as hard as you can
in training or as hard as you need. to in training
you push as hard as you need to in training everything
improves assuming you recover and adapt so they're
really important sort of in in that regard when
we're thinking specifically about some of these
limitations i would say there might be a scenario
where if someone is for example delivery limited
so they're that classic what you might call less
fit person maybe nitrate supplementation is of
benefit to them we haven't really looked at that
specifically in the context of lifting we have
looked at it a little bit in the context of strength
development and it does seem to have a role but
nitrate supplementation might help someone to
get more oxygen around their body during exercise
what are some mechanisms it can cause aids vasodilation
so it's like widening of the blood vessels so
if your heart's not great at get pushing blood
around really quickly at least if you've got
wider vessels in the working muscles what is
going around you're going to get more filling
it but There's still a lot of debate around how,
if you're well -trained, nitrates can't do more
than your body can already do. And so I'm not
sure where that might fall into the spectrum
for a weightlifter in that respect. And no one's
really looked at it. And it's not something I
use regularly with individuals, if I'm honest.
I do get them to eat foods with nitrates in,
but it's not really specifically for that purpose.
It's just because great for health more broadly.
But it could be something that if someone wants
to try, play with it. see how you get on kind
of thing. If you are using a nitrate supplement,
don't use one if you use antibacterial mouthwash
because then it won't work. You need the bacteria
in your mouth to act on the nitrates. I would
say, yeah, sufficient hydration, sufficient carbohydrates.
And then more broadly, I mean, the first principle
of sports nutrition for anything is health. So,
you know, your body works best. It will train
harder. It will certainly recover better if you
are healthy and robust. Getting fitter, faster,
stronger relies on the immune system. The immune
system... is kind of the reflection in a way
of, you know, body health. So eat enough protein,
eat enough calories overall, get five colours
of fruit and veg in, eat some oily fish, eat
some stuff with iron and eat some stuff with
calcium, which sounds like a lot. But to be honest,
it's just eat a variety of food with different
colours and don't stress too much about it. You'll
be fine. Not always easy, but it's quite simple.
What we see most often is the maximal effort
would bring the blackout in Red Lifter, which
happens at the... competitions and but what also
happens is for the competition is regulation
or manipulation of weight so athletes go up or
go down specifically for that competition and
then they try so this is stress and then they
try to double the stress by by maxing out or
going close to to that level how now this process
of cutting weight and of course there are many
ways and and many timelines so how should we
navigate and understand that in the context of
the risk for an athlete of blacking out yeah
so i think the first thing is to establish is
someone someone it is an individual someone who
who's likely to pass out um so what will inform
that is have they done it before you know have
they do they find they black out in training
or have they blacked out in competition before
so okay they might be someone at high risk and
you can also just when they're lifting in training
this is obviously requires a little bit more
equipment and someone to to assess you but you
know you can look at things like hydration status
you can measure those parameters of fitness you
can look at blood pressure you can look at circulating
oxygen after a lift like pulse using a pulse
oximeter and you can look at muscle oxygenation
it's technical it requires kit you know it's
what we we can do with competitive athletes so
you can profile someone and essentially estimate
their risk and you can say well okay you might
not have passed out now but looking at this if
you get much stronger we think you probably will
so let's address it um so you could you can forecast
and again this is all very preliminary because
we're still figuring it all out but yeah so you
can profile someone and or you just use past
experience like yeah you passed out five out
of the last six of your final clean and jerks
it's a problem kind of thing and then if you
say if you've sort of assessed someone or you've
got evidence that it's a problem for you then
yeah the next question is okay well how do we
address it so Ideally, I'm going to take away
all the super technical equipment because I appreciate
a lot of people won't have access to someone
who can do all that testing with them. So we
have a lifter who definitely has a problem. Now,
how are we going about deciding which parameters
to manipulate and how? Yeah, so... If someone
is, yeah, you've got evidence that they do pass
out, then the first things I look at are, we
will talk a little bit about equipment actually,
so I'll look at blood pressure immediately after
moderate to heavy lifts. I'll look at circulating
oxygen immediately and after heavy lifts, look
at blood glucose and look at hydration status.
If you don't have the kit to do that, what I
would say is look at hydration status. When was
the last time you peed and what colour was it?
Hopefully it was in session and very light. and
hopefully it's like that in competition then
I'd also look at someone's diet and be like is
it likely that they're eating enough carbohydrates
in and around training and obviously in a competition
setting what do you normally do after weighing
and what's your your weight making process so
you can kind of estimate okay well this is how
many carbohydrates you've actually got available
to you do we think that's enough to lift Then
with that information, I can be like, right,
okay, your blood pressure looks normal. Cool.
Circulating oxygen looks normal. Fine. Oh, you're
dehydrated. Right. We need to get a lot more
water and salt in you after you weigh in. Blood
glucose, low, borderline. We need to get more
carbohydrates in you. Like I say, I do that with
testing. But if you've got an athlete and you're
like, well, I can't do all this testing. My first
thing would be whatever they're doing, hydration
and carbohydrate wise post weigh in, do more.
And obviously if someone... is really susceptible
to it then and they do have to cut weight for
competition then it's going to be a case of you
know what we've whacked up if we put any more
fluid or carbohydrate in you post weighing you're
going to vomit um the minute you do a heavy clean
cool yeah sorry if you're making weight by dehydration
and carbohydrates this isn't going to work you
need to find another way you need to use other
strategies to make weight because we just can't
get enough back in you post weighing in order
to for you to actually be able to perform. Like
the body can only absorb fluid and salt and carbohydrates
at a certain rate. And you've only got, what,
two and a half hours, two and a half, three hours
between weigh -in and like, you know, your last
clean and jerk. Could we just go back? How do
you measure glucose and hydration when you're
using a kit? So hydration, and I will caveat
this because you need to know what someone has
drunk and how much salt they've had in that we
look at urine specific gravity. So you can essentially,
you peel. on a stick and what color does it go
you can buy these for like a tenner or something
like that but it can be manipulated so for example
if I down a liter and a half of water and I pee
it will look like I'm really hydrated I'm not
I just drank so much water that my body just
flushed it immediately out so you do need to
make sure someone hasn't done that and they've
just drunk steadily over the course of the day
and they have added salt to food or had electrolytes
in their water because you need salt to retain
water as well like hydration is water plus salt
but yeah so we look at someone's yeah hydrate
urine specific gravity which is an indicator
of hydration state which essentially equates
to how dark is your pee and then blood glucose
you can do finger prick blood glucose so just
like drop of blood see how much glucose is in
there or you can also use continuous glucose
monitors so I do that because you might see so
diabetics type 1 diabetics in particular use
them where it's essentially a monitor that just
goes into the sort of the fluid around the cells,
the plasma around the cells. So it's not quite
blood glucose, but it's a proxy for blood glucose.
And you're monitoring someone's blood glucose
continuously. But that's more specialist kit.
Okay. And in terms of post weighing, what is
your protocol? Would you go electrolytes first,
then food? Where the caffeine goes with it? How
all this plays? Yeah. So generally, and this
is, I mean, dizziness aside, just as kind of
a best practice approach. And I would actually
do this, whether you've made weight using any
dehydration or carbs. the hydrate tactics or
not. Because like I said, it's competition. You
want to be maximally hydrated. You want to be
maximally fueled. Get in the max your body can
handle, regardless of whether you need it because
you've, I don't know, not drunk in six hours
or 24 hours. Terrible idea with a two hour weigh
in. But or whether you've been sipping water
happily all morning. So but particularly if someone's
dehydrated, we would give a slightly hypotonic.
So hypotonic means a fluid that's got some salt.
in, but not quite as much, not quite as concentrated
as the body's fluid. So if you're doing it like
yourself, essentially get some electrolytes,
whatever dosage it says, you know, where it's
like one tablet per 500 mils, cool, do one tablet
per 750 mils. So just make it a bit weaker. So
I would make up a liter with slightly less than
recommended electrolytes and 60 to 80 grams of
carbohydrates in there, carb powder, that'll
get, usually get your electrolytes in there as
well. or just chuck sugar in or honey or whatever.
600 mils of that in the first 15 minutes post
weigh -in. The remaining 400 mils over the next
45 minutes. So you're getting hydration in, you're
getting carbohydrates in. Then about 30 minutes
after weigh -in, so once you've had the first
chunk of that drink and when you're sipping the
rest, I would typically eat... one to one and
a half grams per kilo of carbohydrate containing
stuff. And you want it to be low fiber so it
digests quickly. So something like white bagel
with jam and a banana, a bowl of oatmeal, a bowl
of Cocoa Pops, however many squares bar, like
Rice Krispie squares bars or whatever, cereal
bars, whatever it might be. But you don't want
fat. You don't want protein. Neither of those
are any use to you. You want carbohydrates, just
carbohydrates. Protein will do nothing for you
lifting on the platform. It might stop you being
as sore tomorrow, but I don't really care how
sore you are tomorrow. I care how you compete
today. So fine. You don't need to go to the gym
the day after a competition and train. So you
might want to, but you probably don't need to.
So just carbohydrates. And then what I would
say is as you're warming up, just if you can,
maybe have another 30, 40 grams of carbohydrates
before you go out for your first snatch. And
again, keep sipping fluids after that first hour
as well. Between every moderate... Sorry. After...
the slitter is done. So within the first 45 minutes
and the first hour from the weigh -in, do athletes
go into drinking water or eat WTP? Not coffee.
Oh, well, yeah, I'll come back to the caffeine.
But yeah, so in terms of what fluid, this is
where it does become a little bit person -specific
in terms of some people seem to work better with
water. Some people work better continuing with
an electrolyte -containing drink. say, test both,
see what you do better on. Take both into the
bathroom if you need to. And you're suddenly
like, oh, actually, just do a little bit of water,
a little bit of this. You could automate. But
that one is a little bit more person specific.
So I would say trial it and find what works best
for you. Ideally, you're drinking a liter per
hour. But I would say don't do this amount of
fluid in competition, having never done it in
training, because you will find most people don't
drink that much in training. And you do need
to get used to lifting with that amount. of fluid
in you, particularly in a clean. So make sure
you train all this before. But yeah, ideally
you're aiming for something like a liter per
hour or at least 500 mils per hour after that
first hour. And some people, again, will need
more or less. Will it depend on their body weight
or on something else? Not so much body weight.
It does seem to depend. It will depend on sweat
rate. It will depend on someone's hydration status
before, like before how dehydrated they were.
before weigh in it will depend on how much they
can actually tolerate before they feel like they're
just like swishing around on the insides yeah
yeah and again it will also depend on from the
dizziness perspective how susceptible they are
to getting dizzy or to getting kind of jelly
legs you need to have more if you are susceptible
to to that and it does seem to be hydration related
so again it's about finding almost again a bit
like the blood glucose like your window of performance
where's enough for you versus what's too much
and some of those factors will play in and then
there's others what I would call individual differences
that I can't tell you why it's just that I know
that she needs to have a massive gulp of water
between each lift and she could forget to drink
the whole way through and seems to be fine so
and I can't quite tell you why yet you know so
it does kind of vary person to person as well
so it's definitely one to test like you definitely
can't just go down a checklist and be like yeah
yeah yeah okay right you need this much there's
kind of a black box at the bottom where I'm like
oh no let's see and what are you what do you
kind of need and then yeah carb wise I say if
you can do another something like a banana or
a cereal bar during the warm -up that would be
great as well just for another little top -up
and then between and this is for snatch and clean
and jerk between every moderate once you get
to about moderate weight in the warm -up and
also every time you come off the platform you
want to be having a little carbohydrate top -up
so one to two jelly sweets a glug of a carb drink
and to just keep topping up what you need you
won't feel like you need it between the snatches
and you don't really need it for the snatches
if you done all the other carbs correctly beforehand
but what you're doing in the snatches is setting
you up to make sure you've got enough energy
for your last clean and jerk so you need to be
kind of consistent with that and then between
the snatch and the clean and jerk depending how
much time you have which obviously competition
how strong both of your your snatch versus clean
and jerk is if you if you're waiting around for
a little while before you start to warm up your
clean and jerk again if you can get in another
banana or a cereal bar fantastic but otherwise
just hit straight back to those between your
moderate lifts moderate to heavy lifts, getting
some sugar or whatever of any form. Then coming
back to the caffeine, my first question would
be, do you need it in competition? Particularly,
do you actually need it to snatch? If we think
about it, it's super, super technical. Coordination,
reaction time, precision. Obviously, it's important
for both lifts, but the snatch, absolutely important.
Adrenaline heightens kind of all those senses.
And again, you can have too much of a good thing.
Add caffeine on top of that and suddenly you
don't know. of where your arms and legs are potentially.
So more and more I see people, and I do encourage
people to try not having caffeine before the
snatch. It doesn't always improve performance.
It's sometimes to the detriment of performance,
but you might benefit from it in the clean and
jerk where it's a little bit more of a, I just
need force output. Great. In which case have
it again, test for you exactly the optimal timing
before lifting that it kicks in. But for most
people, it's somewhere between 15 to 30 minutes.
So maybe start drinking caffeine after your second
snack or once your snatches are finished, depending
how long you've got until you go out for your
first clean and jerk. But yeah, I would say typically
the thing I see people potentially do wrong the
most is chug down a whole energy drink. 15 minutes
before they go out for their snatch where they
might get more benefit from moving it a little
bit later. So it benefits them in the clean and
jerk, but doesn't necessarily adversely impact
them in the snatch. And again, it depends on
how nervous you get and how reliant you are day
to day on caffeine. Some people might be like,
I really need it for my snatch, in which case,
cool, go ahead. Right, right. Would you say that
routine is more important than having the perfect
setup or should you experiment and find the perfect
setup first and then routine it into your...
bit of both I would say never try anything for
the first time on comp day or never try anything
for the first time on an important comp day you
might want to use an actual competition to test
some things because you're like I just can't
simulate that adrenaline sort of in a training
training thing but yeah definitely don't do it
when you're like I need this competition to qualify
I'm like cool do whatever you've always done
like that with maybe a bit more fluid in cards
but you know don't change your routine too much
but I think both are important and again the
relative importance is going to be different
person to person because if the routine is really
really important for someone's psychology going
into competition well that that's a huge huge
factor assuming they're not like eating nothing
you know not being like you know completely off
the wall nutrition wise then that that that is
really important for them and again some people
are for want of a better way a bit more robust
like they don't what they do on comp day nutrition
and hydration wise is it is sort of important
but as long as they get past a base threshold
they see to be fine again then if they're like
but i really really love my routine i'm like
cool go with your routine but again yeah if someone's
having all these problems and you're like this
is clearly fueling related then i don't care
what your routine is we're getting more stuff
in you you know you don't like to eat no problem
we will find a way to get liquids in you but
you you need to get something in so i think both
are important ideally you have a routine that
is based on the optimal fueling so yeah i would
say trial and play with things in training as
much as you can and if you kind of know what
the theoretical gold standard is like we've just
spoken through be like cool that's what I think
I'm aiming for more or less what am I doing now
where's the gap can I try and get closer to that
in some heavy training sessions so that then
I can use it in comp day when it is already trained
in a bit of a routine. Right, because it takes
time to even think what I have to buy, what I
have to bring with myself, when I have to take
in what and, you know, line it up. It takes a
bit of practice. Yeah. At least for some lifters.
Yeah, like, honestly, like, write it out on a
sheet of paper and, like, literally stick it
at the front of your Walmart platform or give
it to your coach or, you know, if you're like,
I never remember to do this, make sure someone
knows. Yeah. That can really help as well. because
you don't want to be thinking about oh I need
to eat this I need to drink this like that is
a distraction so you either want it so embedded
in what you do that it's automatic because you
practiced it in training so much or you know
you've been doing this as your comp routine for
the last five ten years or have someone who can
do the thinking for you because yeah you it's
not going to be good for performance if you're
coming off and being like right what do I need
to eat and drink now what do I need to oh god
I've got to go out again you know so you definitely
want to as far as possible not be actively thinking
about it so yeah written out and stuck on the
floor or like your coach is the one who's holding
it for you so you literally walk off the platform
and they go eat or whatever it might be, can
be really useful. Okay, so there is a lifter
on the platform and they went on the first clean
and jerk and they blacked out. So they passed
out on the platform. They're coming up. Everything
seems to be fine. They are not injured in other
way. Now, what can be done in these few minutes?
Maybe the coach moved them up a few kilos so
they have maybe a few minutes to do something.
What should be done? Carbs and water. Like glucose
and water. Like sugar and water. Sugar, water
or salt. And yeah, I would get them to have big
gulps of water, suck on jelly sweets. The reason
I say suck, suck for about 10 seconds on a sweet.
And then before you actually eat it is because
you can get an additional brain activation from
glucose in your mouth, but it needs to be in
there for about 10 seconds. So I think it, we
think it only really works on glucose. So if
you're having dried fruit as your between lift,
just eat that. But if you've got sweets, suck
on them first. Or if you're drinking a carb drink,
swill it around your mouth for 10 seconds before
swallowing it. But yeah, carbohydrates, fluids,
don't gulp them. Have one gulp and then just
keep sipping it in the minutes you've got rather
than just multiple gulps. And yeah, steady intake
of carbohydrates, but of both not to the point
where you're then like, I'm going to be sick.
Anything we can do for shifting fluids? Not really.
No, yeah, you just need to get fluids in. Yeah,
their heart rate's going to be high. So it's
not as though you want them to keep walking around
to kind of keep their heart rate up. Their heart
rate is going to be high because they've just...
just passed out and now feel pressure to lift
again. So their blood is moving around the body
as good as it can at that point. It's probably
more about calming it down, actually. What you
don't want someone to do, actually, that does
make me think, what you don't want someone to
do is hyperventilate. Hyperventilation reduces
the oxygen availability to the brain. So you
want to keep someone as calm as possible. Like
I say, their heart rate will be high enough.
Actually, you probably want to just calm them
down. Just be like deep breath in, steady breath
out, deep breath in, steady. breath out uh you
want to avoid them because that that will pass
out on the next lift they might pass out before
they lift yeah so so avoid hyperventilation at
all costs maybe loosen the belt just for them
to yeah yeah yeah definitely loosen the belt
off the platform yeah Are there any cases you
would say this lifter shouldn't go back? They're
not injured. Yeah, if they're fine. I mean, I
think if there was a kind of a hydration reason
for them not to go out, it would have manifested
even before their snatch at weigh -in. So I would
say I can't think of a situation aside from actually...
We think this person has a heart issue, you know,
sort of a doctor involvement where we think there's
a medical issue that if they just passed out
because haven't drunk enough and they have itched
themselves, do what you can. Let's see if they
can do, they can go out and lift again. All right.
And how the medical problem you mentioned, how
that would manifest itself. So what coaches have
to pay attention to? Does someone know where
they are? Do they seem to be having like some
sort of arrhythmia? You know, that someone will
always, if someone has passed out, they should
be checked out by the medic who's... you know,
by the platform if they're in sort of a major
competition and they'll do their relevant medical
assessments. But yeah, you'd sort of, you know,
if you're like someone is not okay, get a medic
to check them over. Yeah, if they don't seem
to kind of know what's going on, if their heart
rate is all over the place or is like really,
really high and you're like, it's been 20 seconds
since they passed out, why is their heart rate
really, really high? Like if you're in any way,
shape or form worried, get a medic to look at
them because if there is a problem. You don't
want to have missed it. And obviously none of
us have the qualifications to be like, oh, you're
fine. Go back out there. You know, you want someone
who knows what they're looking at to sort of
see them. So let's bring it all together. What
would be your advice for coaches and athletes
in Olympic weightlifting in terms of, I don't
know how to call it, preventing? No, managing
lifters so that blackout is less likely to happen.
Stay hydrated, eat a lot of carbs, maintain some
level of physical fitness and activity. outside
your sport to the point yeah all right two short
questions to finish the first one is what is
your favorite lift i am not a weightlifter no
one will ever see me snatch or clean and jerk
again because it would be embarrassing and i
will lose all professional respect people have
for me so my favorite lift would probably be
i think i would say probably an rdl anything
with a hinge anything with a hinge where i don't
have to bend any limbs that's probably my ideal
lift Awesome. And where people can find you if
they want to get in touch, need help or want
to ask a question? Yeah, probably the easiest
way is Instagram. So my Instagram is actionaid
.feedfuelperforms. So yeah, I'm on there most
days and yeah, very accessible from there. And
I do, I do look at messages. So yeah, if anyone's
ever got a question, feel free to reach out.
Always love talking about these things. Awesome.
Thank you so much for today. It was a pleasure.
Thank you for having me.