Evidence Based Sports Performance

"Low carb is catabolic. You'll lose muscle on it".

It's the first thing anyone says when a Masters athlete mentions dropping the carbs, and it's the single reason most of them never try.

Here's what the research actually found. In ketogenic athletes, fat free mass goes down a little. Muscle mass stays the same. No significant change in skeletal muscle, which is the stuff that makes you strong.

What came off was water. You got tighter. You didn't get weaker.

It really annoys me when people say a ketogenic diet is catabolic. It's catabolic if you aren't feeding yourself enough, and that's true of every diet there has ever been. That isn't a keto problem; it's an underfeeding problem, and it has a completely different fix.

If you've spent years eating around that fear, you haven't been protecting your muscle.

So eat enough. Whole food, animal-based, low carb, with adequate fat and protein.

Where did you first hear that one?

Keto doesn't make you faster. It doesn't make you slower either. That isn't where the difference is.

Every study we have on CrossFit and endurance athletes measured the same handful of things. Reps. Weight moved. Time. Even how hard the work felt. There is no meaningful difference between a keto athlete and a carb-fueled athlete, and I'll say that about my own side of the argument as readily as anyone else's.

The difference shows up on the back end.

Less inflammation. Lower injury risk. More volume you can actually absorb. Shorter recovery time. Which adds up to an athlete who performs at a high level for longer.

For a Masters athlete that isn't a small difference. Most of them aren't chasing a number they've never hit. They're trying to get back to one they used to own. This is what makes that possible, and then what stops it slipping again.

Eat whole food, animal-based, low carb, with adequate fat and protein. This will give you low inflammatory, highly nutritious options that will support your metabolism.

"If you're always sore and always broken down, that isn't toughness. It's a signal. that something's wrong.

Walk into any CrossFit gym and you'll find someone training around an injury. Something hurts, so they modify. Once they're warm the pain backs off, so they keep going. Next week it's the other shoulder.

I was that guy.

We're obsessed with doing more because we think more is better. More is not better. There is a ceiling on what you can recover from in a week, and everything past it is just damage you carry into the next session.

Masters athletes get told this is just what it feels like now.

It isn't. It's what a training week you haven't recovered from feels like, and it has been for years.

How many sessions last week did you start already sore?"

Between 2016 and 2018, I had minor tears in both calves, pulled a hamstring three times, tore the meniscus in my left knee, had a groin pull that lasted six months, herniated discs in my neck, and tore the labrums in both shoulders.

I went from training 4 to 6 days a week to feeling like absolute trash after 2.

The speed I was hitting overreaching and overtraining was frustrating and demoralizing.

I figured out that it was what I was putting in my face. Six carb heavy meals a day, because that's what you did if you want enough in the tank to train hard.

In May 2018, at 45, I changed my diet to help my gut issues. It worked, but I wasn't prepared for how it would affect my physical performance.

90 days in, I started noticing improvements in my recovery. After about 6 months, everything was different. The groin pull resolved first. Then my knee stopped hurting. Then I could move without my shoulders being destroyed afterward.

Eventually, every chronic pain I had was either completely resolved or greatly minimized.

Now, I'm 54, and I train 4 to 6 days a week.

If you're a Masters athlete and your body keeps breaking down, go look at your food.

Do you feel like things are starting to fall apart?

Feeling like you need a pre-workout isn't normal. It's a symptom.

Tired, sore and flat before you've even started. Every CrossFit athlete I know has had a week like that, and a scoop or pre-workout just covers it up.

Start with your sleep, then look at what you're eating.

If your diet is on point you shouldn't need to eat before a workout.
..or during one.

Every CrossFit and HYROX athlete has been told the opposite since day one. Pre-workout. Intra-workout. Something in the tank or the wheels come off.

You're walking around with thousands of hours of stored energy on you. So if you can't get through a session without topping off, it's likely your current plan is't working.

Instead of creating a dependency on constsnt fueling, let your body do what it's designed to do and stop trying to be smarter than human biology.

Carb supplementation only support more carb supplementation. Metabolic flexbility is a super power. For that, ketogenic nutrition is king.