Most masters athletes are still eating the way they did at 30. The training has changed, the body has changed but the nutrition hasn’t. And that gap is quietly costing them muscle, recovery, bone density and performance.

Taryn Richardson is an advanced sports dietitian based in Brisbane who spent six years as the sports dietitian for Triathlon Australia, working with elite and para-triathlon athletes all the way to Olympic level. She also runs a private practice and hosts the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. She has been working with triathletes for two decades and has seen pretty much everything. This conversation is specifically focused on masters athletes, the physiological changes that drive different nutritional needs after 50, and what to actually do about it.

IN THIS EPISODE WE COVER:

KEY PRINCIPLES

KILLER QUOTE

Free 5-part audio series

Taryn has created a free 5-part audio series "The 5 Biggest Nutrition Mistakes Costing You Time on Race Day" I recommend checking it out before your next race

CONNECT with Taryn

Website: dietitianapproved.com

Instagram: dietitian.approved

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DietitianApproved

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dietitianapproved

LINKS & RESOURCES

Taryn talked about the BBQ study - check that out here: The 100g protein "BBQ" Study

GUT HEALTH

She was also quite vocal about The Gut microbiome testing study  BOTTOM LINE: Save your money!!!!

The alternative is to absorb some of the content produced by Megan Rossi The Gut Health Doctor. That might be the best starting point if you want to improve gut health.

Taryn’s book recommendation is Up to Speed by Christine Yu. The groundbreaking science of women athletes is a goodie for both men and women.

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Find out why some triathletes keep improving into their 60s while others plateau in their 50s.

If what you heard today resonates and you want a training structure built around these principles, with individuality, recovery, strength and the long game at its centre, that is exactly what SWAT Inner Circle is designed around.

New members join at £65 a month. No minimum term, cancel any time.

Details at simonward.co.uk/swat-inner-circle

Connect with me HERE:

https://linktr.ee/simonward

You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube

Email: [email protected]

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Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to [email protected] and you might just hear it on a future episode!

Seven years ago Debbie Potts came on this podcast to talk about what happened when her body finally said enough. A five-time Kona qualifier, she had been doing 20-hour training weeks on one meal a day, working 12-hour days, running on high cortisol and calling it fitness. The diagnosis was HPA axis syndrome. The recovery took years.

Seven years on, Debbie is a health practitioner, author and coach based in San Diego, and she has built an entire philosophy around what she learned. She calls it the holistic method - eight elements of health that go well beyond the training plan. This conversation picks up where we left off, and covers the bigger picture questions that most athletes never think to ask until something goes wrong.

IN THIS EPISODE WE COVER:

KILLER QUOTE

CONNECT with Debbie

Website: https://debbiepotts.net/

Previous Be Battle Ready episodes with Debbie Potts

Episode 1 - Dealing with HPA Axis syndrome

Episode 2 - Recovering from Chronic Fatigue

LINKS & RESOURCES

Outlive by Peter Attia

Blue Zones documentary

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Find out why some triathletes keep improving into their 60s while others plateau in their 50s.

If what you heard today resonates and you want a training structure built around these principles, with individuality, recovery, strength and the long game at its centre, that is exactly what SWAT Inner Circle is designed around.

New members join at £65 a month. No minimum term, cancel any time.

Details at simonward.co.uk/swat-inner-circle

Connect with me HERE:

https://linktr.ee/simonward

You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube

Email: [email protected]

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Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to [email protected] and you might just hear it on a future episode!

Most people are diligently paying into a financial pension every month. But what about the physical one?

This week Simon and Beth sit down to unpack one of the core concepts behind the Battle Ready philosophy. The physical pension. The idea that the decisions you make today about how you sleep, move, eat and recover determine what you have available to you at 60, 70 and beyond. Not just as an athlete, but as a human being who wants to actually enjoy the life they have worked hard to build.

This is not a performance conversation. It is a longevity conversation. And it applies to everyone.

IN THIS EPISODE WE COVER:

KILLER QUOTE

LINKS & RESOURCES

Dan John episode: The Physical Pension: Strength, Longevity and the Only Secret That Exists

Fast After 50 by Joe Friel: Fast After 50

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Find out why some triathletes keep improving into their 60s while others plateau in their 50s.

If what you heard today resonates and you want a training structure built around these principles, with individuality, recovery, strength and the long game at its centre, that is exactly what SWAT Inner Circle is designed around.

New members join at £65 a month. No minimum term, cancel any time.

Details at simonward.co.uk/swat-inner-circle

Connect with me HERE:

https://linktr.ee/simonward

You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube

Email: [email protected]

Sign up for Simon’s weekly newsletter

Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to [email protected] and you might just hear it on a future episode!

Consistency is the word every great coach comes back to eventually. Not volume, not intensity, not the latest methodology. Consistency.

But saying it and doing it are very different things. Particularly through winter, when the race season is over, the mornings are dark, and the motivation that carried you through summer starts to feel a long way away.

This week Simon and Beth do a proper deep dive into what consistency actually means in practice, and specifically what habits and actions protect it through the winter months.

IN THIS EPISODE WE COVER:

KILLER QUOTE

LINKS & RESOURCES

WHOOP Project PR Study

Train Less, Recover More

Recovery Based Training, Your Questions Answered

Christine Clubbs episode: What your Garmin Can’t Tell You

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Find out why some triathletes keep improving into their 60s while others plateau in their 50s.

If what you heard today resonates and you want a training structure built around these principles, with individuality, recovery, strength and the long game at its centre, that is exactly what SWAT Inner Circle is designed around.

New members join at £65 a month. No minimum term, cancel any time.

Details at simonward.co.uk/swat-inner-circle

Connect with me HERE:

https://linktr.ee/simonward

You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube

Email: [email protected]

Sign up for Simon’s weekly newsletter

Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to [email protected] and you might just hear it on a future episode!

Over the years I've been lucky enough to sit down with some genuinely exceptional coaches. People who between them have coached athletes from absolute beginners all the way through to Olympic champions and Ironman world record holders.

When I went back and listened to those conversations recently, something struck me. They were all saying the same things. Different words, different experiences, different athletes, different levels of the sport. But the core principles kept coming up again and again.

This episode pulls those threads together. Six coaches. Eight principles. And one idea that runs underneath all of them.

THE SIX COACHES

Joe Friel - author of the Triathlete's Training Bible and Fast After 50, one of the most widely respected voices in endurance coaching.

Chris Jones - head coach for British Triathlon at the Sydney Olympics and one of the most influential coaches the sport has produced in the UK.

David Tilbury-Davis - professional triathlon coach who has worked with elite athletes across the world.

Mark Allen - six-time Ironman world champion and one of the most thoughtful people about training and performance I have ever spoken to.

Jack Maitland - builder of the Leeds Triathlon Centre and coach to the Brownlee brothers from the beginning of their careers.

Jim Vance - American coach with extensive experience across both elite and age-group athletes.

8 KEY PRINCIPLES

KILLER QUOTE

LINKS & RESOURCES

Joe Friel; Fast After 50

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Find out why some triathletes keep improving into their 60s while others plateau in their 50s.

If what you heard today resonates and you want a training structure built around these principles, with individuality, recovery, strength and the long game at its centre, that is exactly what SWAT Inner Circle is designed around.

New members join at £65 a month. No minimum term, cancel any time.

Details at simonward.co.uk/swat-inner-circle

Connect with me HERE:

https://linktr.ee/simonward

You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube

Email: [email protected]

Sign up for Simon’s weekly newsletter

Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to [email protected] and you might just hear it on a future episode!

Georgia Hamblett found this podcast driving between park runs in Northern Ireland, working her way through all 36 of them as a personal challenge. She was in the middle of a placement year away from university, a deliberate change of scene at a time when she needed one, and the long drives gave her time to think about the kind of athlete she wanted to become.

Georgia is a competitive age-group aquabike athlete and sports journalist writing for Aquabike.World. Her journey to the European Age Group Aquabike Championships in Spain, which she made alone, 12 hours of travel, bike box and all, has not been straightforward. She has navigated an eating disorder, RED-S, a labral hip tear, and the transition from triathlon to aquabike as a way of staying competitive while protecting her long-term health.

This is a very honest conversation about subjects that don't get discussed enough in endurance sport. Georgia talks about them with clarity, humour and a refreshing absence of self-pity. Her story is still being written and it is well worth following.

IN THIS EPISODE WE TALK ABOUT:

KILLER QUOTE

CONNECT with Georgia

Instagram: @georgias_tris_and_tribulations ,

Aquabike.World

Writing: Aquabike.World

Georgia’s book recommendation: Unbroken by Katarina Johnson-Thompson

🔗 LINKS & RESOURCES

Previous Be Battle Ready episode with Nat Lawrence: Spinning Plates - The Amazing Life of Outlaw champion Natalie Lawrence

If you or someone you know is navigating disordered eating or RED-S, please seek support from a professional who understands athletes. In the UK, Beat is the leading eating disorder charity and can help signpost specialist support.

RED-S Project -where athletes of all ages, genders, sports and abilities come together to prevent and overcome Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport.

If today's episode has made you think about building a training approach that works around your whole life, your health included, that is exactly what SWAT Inner Circle is built around.

New members join at £65 a month. No minimum term, cancel any time.

Details at simonward.co.uk/swat-inner-circle

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Find out why some triathletes keep improving into their 60s while others decline in their 50s.

simon-ward.kit.com/keepimproving

Connect with me HERE:

https://linktr.ee/simonward

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Email: [email protected]

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Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to [email protected] and you might just hear it on a future episode!

Over the past few months I've had six remarkable guests on this podcast. On the surface their stories couldn't be more different, but the same themes kept coming up again and again across all of them.

Six of them. Jamie Bedwell, a professional triathlete who had his career ended by a rare arterial condition and turned down surgery to protect something more important. Christine Clubbs, a GB age-grouper who has spent two and a half years tracking the human side of training with nothing more than a notebook and a pen. Justin Robbins, a long-time triathlete who discovered he was fit but not healthy, and made a really interesting change in his approach. Sue Reynolds, a two-time age-group world champion who pushed herself to the edge of overtraining syndrome chasing an extraordinary question. Jane Hansom, Ironman world champion, who walked away from the sport she'd dominated and built something completely new. And Nick Parkes, a masters open water swimmer who suffered a cardiac arrest mid-race with absolutely no warning and survived to tell the story.

This episode is about what all six of them have in common.

7 KEY LESSONS

THE ONE QUESTION

KILLER QUOTE

LINKS & RESOURCES

If the answer to that question is that you want to keep performing well, stay healthy and be genuinely durable into your 50s, 60s and beyond, that is exactly what SWAT Inner Circle is built around.

New members join at £65 a month. No minimum term, cancel any time.

Details at simonward.co.uk/swat-inner-circle

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A simple checklist to see if you’re actually on track 3–6 months out.

Ironman Sanity Checklist

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Originally recorded May 2024. This episode is from the Be Battle Ready archive and is well worth a second listen.

Dan John is one of the most respected strength coaches in the world. A former All-American discus thrower, a prolific author with close to 20 books to his name, and someone who has been coaching athletes across multiple sports for over four decades. He has a rare gift. The ability to take genuinely complex ideas and distil them into something so simple you wonder why you ever made it complicated in the first place.

This conversation covers the difference between health, longevity, fitness and performance, and why most athletes confuse them. We get into why the basics consistently applied over years are the only secret that actually exists, what strength and mobility work should look like for endurance athletes over 50, what equipment you actually need, and a phrase that came up in the conversation that I think every person over 40 should sit with. The physical pension.

5 KEY POINTS

3 TAKEAWAYS

KILLER QUOTE

CONNECT with Dan

Website - Dan John University

Sign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter “Wandering Weights” 

Easy Strength with Dan John & Pavel Tsatsouline

Check out Dan John’s other books HERE

Dan is a prolific writer. Check out his articles and blogs 

Dan John talks about the physical pension — putting regular deposits into your physical health now so future you has something to draw on. That's exactly the philosophy behind SWAT Inner Circle. Structured training plans from Sprint to Ironman, strength and mobility built in, recovery centred, and designed for the age you are now, not the age you were.

New members join at £65 a month. No minimum term, cancel any time.

Details at simonward.co.uk/swat-inner-circle

FREE Download👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

A simple checklist to see if you’re actually on track 3–6 months out.

Ironman Sanity Checklist

Connect with me HERE:

https://linktr.ee/simonward

You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube

Email: [email protected]

Sign up for Simon’s weekly newsletter

Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to [email protected] and you might just hear it on a future episode!

Last week Beth and I made the case for building your training plan around recovery rather than volume. Not everyone was convinced and that's exactly what we were hoping for.

This week we’re back to work through the most common challenges and questions that came in. From why the pros train 30 hours a week to whether recovery-centred training is just an excuse to be lazy, this episode tackles the pushback head on and gives honest, practical answers to the questions every serious endurance athlete will recognise.

If you haven't listened to last week's episode yet, it's worth doing that first. The link is in the show notes.

5 KEY POINTS

3 TAKEAWAYS

KILLER QUOTE

LINKS & RESOURCES

Previous episode — Train Less, Recover More

Sue Reynolds episode — What Would Happen If an Age-Group Triathlete Trained Like an Olympian?:

WHOOP Project PR Study

Tim Gabbett research — The training—injury prevention paradox: should athletes be training smarter and harder?

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/50/5/273

Want a training structure built around what you can actually recover from rather than a generic plan? That is exactly what SWAT is designed for.

CLICK HERE TO START YOUR MISSION

FREE Download👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

A simple checklist to see if you’re actually on track 3–6 months out.

Ironman Sanity Checklist

Connect with me HERE:

https://linktr.ee/simonward

You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube

Email: [email protected]

Sign up for Simon’s weekly newsletter

Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to [email protected] and you might just hear it on a future episode!

Most athletes ask the wrong question. Instead of "how much training do I need to do?" the question that will actually change your performance is "how much training can I recover from?"

In this episode Simon is joined by Beth for a conversation that challenges one of the most deeply held assumptions in endurance sport — that more training equals better performance. They dig into why recovery should underpin every training plan, what the evidence actually says about training volume versus training smarter, and the practical steps any athlete can take this week to shift their approach.

This one is for anyone who is consistently tired, consistently below where they expect to be, and wondering why the training isn't working.

5 KEY POINTS

3 TAKEAWAYS

KILLER QUOTE

LINKS & RESOURCES

WHOOP Project PR Study -  the recovery-based training study referenced throughout this episode.

Christine Clubbs episode - Be Battle Ready podcast - What your Garmin can’t tell you

Sue Reynolds episode - Be Battle Ready podcast - What happens if an age group athlete trains like an Olympian.

Want a training structure built around what you can actually absorb rather than a generic plan?

CLICK HERE TO START YOUR MISSION

If this conversation has resonated and you want a training structure built around your whole life, not just your performance targets, that is exactly what SWAT is designed for.

CLICK HERE TO START YOUR MISSION

FREE Download👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

A simple checklist to see if you’re actually on track 3–6 months out.

Ironman Sanity Checklist

Connect with me HERE:

https://linktr.ee/simonward

You can find links for the following channels - Website, Facebook, podcast, Instagram, YouTube

Email: [email protected]

Sign up for Simon’s weekly newsletter

Got an awkward question for Simon? Send it to [email protected] and you might just hear it on a future episode!