Today’s episode features nutrition consultant and performance coach, Matt Cooper.  Matt is a bright young mind who I’ve had many conversations with in my recent journey of human performance.  He was the guest for episode #121 where he talked about many training concepts, including the potential neurological drawbacks of excessive training under heavy barbell loads.

Today’s show is a chat about holistic training integration, where Matt covers the elements of stress, recovery, nutrition and energy systems.  Being a masterful coach represents knowing not only the “big rocks” of training, but also excelling at the subtle aspects of training athletes.  I believe that success is found in a mastery of the subtleties, and today’s episode covers a great many of them.   This is definitely a show for dedicated coaches, athletes and trainees who want to cover all bases in their training process.

Topics Matt will specifically get into include all things stress, light, energy systems, mitochondria, caloric restriction, ketogenic implications for athletes, nutrient intake and hormonal fluctuations, and finally, the impact of nutritionally derived inflammation on pain and injury.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

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Key Points

Where Matt starts with nutrition

How to determine if you are oxidative or sugar burning using breathing measurements

Nutritional stress and the workout window

Matt’s take on nutritionally supporting the nervous system through nutrition

How to have a robust mitrochondrial density

How to approach fasting and calorie restriction from an athletic perspective

Nutrient intake throughout the day and it’s impact on branches of the autonomic nervous system/carb backloading

The impact of nutritionally derived inflammation and injuries

“A big mistake is having guys load in nutrients closer to when guys are going to be more in the sympathetic state”

“You might have someone take oscillating days of higher carbohydrate and lower carbohydrate temporarily, just based on what energy system they are using”

“If you are mainly nasal breathing, you are more aerobic dominant for the most part, and that is going to keep you from going into an excess state of fight or flight, but if you are more of a mouth breather, that is probably going to make you transition your gears to go into more of a sympathetic state sooner, which is going to result in you utilizing more of that precious stored glycogen reserve that you have”

“You are still using all of the energy pathways at once, the question is “which one are you going to be most dominant in””

“High grade Omega 3-Fish Oil can really tune parts of the nervous system”

“I like getting guys on a really comprehensive either plant or ocean mineral blend to help motor neuron volley and transmission”

“(In regards to having a robust mitochondrial density) Sleeping enough, getting in a nutrient dense diet, respecting your light cycles.. making sure you see morning light, making sure you see evening light, being respectful of the light cycles you see later in the day”

“A lot of the basic supplements out there don’t have great bio-availablity”

“(In caloric restriction) you are actually resetting some of those insulin receptors that help with some of that “gun-clip” type storage of carbohydrates”

“Energy system development  needs to be looked at from a nutritional perspective, not just a training perspective”

“That keto(genic) ratio that was invented… was more for medical cases”

“Metabolic flexibility is the goal”

“Don’t forget that most soft tissue injuries are exacerbated by nutrition, basically via inflammation of the nerves causing pain”

“When you fix someone’s diet (in terms of inflammation),