Peak: The New Science of Athletic Performance That is Revolutionizing Sports is a new book, by my fellow C-ISSN and CSCS Dr. Marc Bubbs. It was one of my best reads of the year for all things sports science. A few of my big takeaways include: – Endurance athletes seem to need more sleep than strength athletes, and both seriously suffer when sleep is anything less than 6 hours. – A temperature change in your fingertips is likely the first circadian cue you get at the beginning of the day (I could totally see a potential jet lag device that warms the fingers – I’ll take the royalty for that, please. ;) ). – Aerobic training for strength athletes could assist with their immune system strength. – Loading with probiotics for 2 weeks leading up to competition could give you an ergogenic edge. – Elite athletes on a subpar diet show the same blood biomarkers as those with pre-diabetes and a fructosamine blood test can be one of the best ways to measure this. – Top supplements proven to work in exercise science, with the strongest track history, are creatine, caffeine, nitrate precursors (e.g. beet), whey protein, beta-alanine, and sodium bicarbonate. – Athletes with the CC genotype of the CYP1A2 gene are actually hampered in performance in response to caffeine intake. – Eating carbs too far from a performance event (e.g. 60-75 minutes) results in hypoglycemia before the event vs. consuming them closer to the event (e.g. 20-45 minutes) – Fish oil can stimulate muscle building by stimulating mTOR pathways. Vitamin D and creatine are also very good for recovery, not just performance. Creatine can even be helpful for TBI/concussions. – High sugar intake is associated with lower heart rate variability (HRV). – Cold water immersion (CWI) beats cryotherapy for recovery, hands down. You can get this brand new book here. But I also decided to get author Dr. Marc Bubbs on this podcast to take a deeper dive into he concepts above, and many others. He is a licensed Naturopathic Doctor, Performance Nutrition Lead for Canada Basketball Team, Speaker, and former Strength Coach. Marc also hosts the Dr. Bubbs Performance Podcast, connecting listeners with world-leading experts in human performance and health. Dr. Bubbs regularly presents at health, fitness and medical conferences across North America, UK and Europe and consults with professional teams in the NBA, NHL, and MLB teams. He practices in both Toronto, Canada and London, England. During our discussion, you'll discover: -How Marc gathers, curates and assimilates new information for his practice...8:45 Struggled as a young athlete with disease, etc. and discovered naturopathic medicine He realized that there wasn't much of a market for it (circa 2000) but he embraced it and became the best at it The more personal contact with the source of info, the better (there's nuance in conversation that doesn't make it into an academic paper) Vast resources available on the Internet (and they're all true, of course) -Current research on caffeine as an ergogenic aid...15:00 Study conducted by Nanci Guest, University of Toronto: Cycling time trial under 3 different conditions: 0 caffeine 2 mg caffeine 4 mg per kg of caffeine AC gene variants had no benefit AA gene variants had benefit at both 2 mg and 4 mg levels Athletes with the CC genotype of the CYP1A2 gene are actually hampered in performance in response to caffeine intake The sweet spot: 3-6 mg of caffeine per kg per day 23 and Me test will identify CYP 1A2 gene -How endurance and strength athletes differ regarding sleep needs...21:18 Endurance athletes fare better on the upper end of the sleep suggested amounts (8-10 hrs) They also suffer more on lack of sleep Greater volume of training More early morning sessions Sleep is #1 recovery tool some docs recommend It's one thing to acknowledge the need, quite another to actually get more sleep -The relationship between finger temperature and circadian rhythm...31:25 Fingertips are the fir