Selene Yeager

Bicycling mag calls me the Fit Chick. Others call me other things. Host: Hit Play Not Pause. Content manager @feistymenopause IG. Stay Feisty.

[Selene Yeager @FitChick3]

@ryangrim As a Lehigh Valley resident, I assure you, it's not at all stressful living in one of the key swing districts in the swingy-est of swing states...

[Steve Magness @stevemagness]

TIme for a rant. Why is it so hard to study performance in the lab?

One major reason is that what feels like a massive improvement in the real world is hard to pick up in the lab.

Take super shoes, you get a 3-4% boost in performance. Massive. You feel it on race day. But in the lab, even the largest single factor boost we get...it's hard to pick apart.

Now, take it a step further to a still significant but smaller boost, say 1% from high carb fueling or bicarb or any other legitimate intervention...

It's near impossible to get this to show up consistently in studies on a small number of amateur or moderately trained folks. Why? The variation in performance is too large.

If you're a 6 minute miler, you don't run 6min ont he dot every time you race. On a great day, you run 6:00. On a good day, maybe 6:05. Average day 6:08. Bad day 6:15. Disaster? 6:25.

Hopkins & Hewson (2001) studied the day variability of performance and basically found:
Elite/world-class trained: ~1.5%
Sub-elite well-trained: ~2.5%
Recreational/amateur: ~4%

The point is the variation in day to day performance is much larger than the intervention. For amateurs, its bigger than the single biggest performance breakthrough we've had in running (super shoes!).

To counteract this, we try to use larger number of folks, but in exercise science that almost never happens because of recruiting, funding, and other constraints.

So what you tend to get with small N studies is that most are statistically blind to any change under 3-4%.

And yet...most of our interventions from fuel to bicarb to caffeine are all relatively small effects (0.5-2%) which are practically very significant, but hard to detect in the lab.

That's why... performance in the real world tends to show what works. It's not perfect. But if you've got hundreds or thousands of elites and sub-elites taking bicarb and saying: "Hmm, I ran a bit faster in each race I used it this season..." It sticks around.

One of the main reasons is athletes don't just test things in a one off study. They test it in training, key workouts, numerous races, etc. Compare notes with their training partners, etc. It's easier to surface a signal over that longer period.

Again, it's not perfect. But what often happens is a new supplement, tool, tech shows up. Everyone tries it. For a brief period you don't quite know as there's a copycat nature...But if the performance boost is significant it stays. If it doesn't, it fades away.

So when you see someone say, "Hey in this study of 14 amateur runners, taking carbs didn't improve performance..." the answer is almost always, ya because of day to day performance variation, you can't pick up the signal from the noise.

Science is great. I love research. But don't overlook the natural trend of trial and error in the arena. It generally surfaces what has value.

[Brunel SAVI Group @SAVIBrunel]

According to @FitChick3 and @MalCrev of @RunnersWorldmag, staying motivated can be strategised:

🏃‍♂️ Track your training/set realistic goals

🤝 Find the right people as training buddies

🎧 Use music to fuel your fitness goals

🌐 https://t.co/eExwdXx5nC

#runner #musicmotivation

[Freyy @Freyy_is]

saw a post saying we are so emotionally invested in the artemis ii mission because it shows intelligent people working together to do difficult things. and honestly, that resonates. it feels like a reminder of what is still possible

[Dave @GamewithDave]

The reason people miss the 90s isn’t just nostalgia.

Life was slower.
Quieter.
Less demanding.

We weren’t designed to process constant noise, updates, and stimulation all day.

[Sports Business Journal @SBJ]

Dr. Kate Ackerman is leading a new Women’s Health, Sports & Performance Institute in Boston aimed at closing the data gap in women’s sports research 📖

Only 6% of sports science studies are conducted exclusively on women.

Read more: https://t.co/DdwIz3SZty

[Selene Yeager @FitChick3]

@Michael_Easter Amen to this.

[Dave Smith @ComicDaveSmith]

Breaking Points with @krystalball and @esaagar has been phenomenal the last few weeks. It’s always great but it’s been particularly excellent covering the Epstein stuff. Best news show out there. @ryangrim and @emilyjashinsky are great too. You should follow them all.

[Brian Hiatt @hiattb]

This should be taught til the end of time as an example of “listen to the fucking answers and ask a fucking follow-up question”

[onion person @CantEverDie]

is it good if the average person instinctively hates your product and brand upon seeing it

[Kevín @KevOnStage]

This is how Batman found The Joker in The Dark Knight and I don’t like it.

[Selene Yeager @FitChick3]

@billgifford @Mkelutherie @YouTube Now I’m even angrier and I didn’t think that was possible.

[Selene Yeager @FitChick3]

@billgifford @Mkelutherie @YouTube Complete bullshit

[Selene Yeager @FitChick3]

@billgifford @Mkelutherie @YouTube 😶 I’m rarely without words. Effing speechless.

[Selene Yeager @FitChick3]

@billgifford @Mkelutherie @YouTube WHAT?????!?

[Selene Yeager @FitChick3]

@billgifford @YouTube Molly’s the queen. And she nails this.

[Selene Yeager @FitChick3]

@Brady_H 44 at 57 w occasional dips to 38. Cycling & running w daily lifting

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

Trump and Mamdani giving the country a vision of what bottom v top rather than left v right politics could look like is, if not historic, a genuinely novel development

[Selene Yeager @FitChick3]

@Alan_Couzens Staying calm is a big X-factor there...Also make sure wetsuit fits properly. Helps with the calm factor. The number of athletes I've seen in too tight (often old) wetsuits who get in the water, struggle to breathe and freak out is not small.

[Selene Yeager @FitChick3]

@Alan_Couzens Women #5, too? Might be a bridge too far. A nice clipper cut with a fade, been there. But can't take it down to the bone...way too long to get the locks back with all those awful in between stages...