Inside Exercise

Dr Glenn McConell chats for a second time with Professor Michael Joyner from the Mayo Clinic, Minnesota, USA. Michael blew me away with his absolutely amazing knowledge on past athletes and coaches and their endurance training methods. Very different types of training can result in similar results. His running Haiku: Run a lot of miles, some faster than your race pace, rest once in a while. Michae...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Niels Ørtenblad from the University of Southern Denmark. He is an expert on muscle glycogen. We discussed the history of muscle glycogen and exercise research, the effect of diet and exercise training on muscle glycogen levels and use, the distribution and use of muscle glycogen within different muscle fibre compartments, unusual to fully deplete muscle glyco...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Jonathan Little from University of British Columbia. Kelowna, Canada. He is an expert on metabolism, nutrition, type two diabetes and exercise. We discussed what are keto (ketogenic) diets, different types of keto diets, the rationale for them and their effect on heath and exercise performance. We then did the same with ketone supplements. Whether there is a...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Margo Mountjoy from McMaster University in Canada. A wide ranging and at times emotional discussion about the types of harassment and abuse (psychological abuse underlies most), prevalence of abuse (higher in marginalized groups), power relationships, reporting policies and procedures, barriers to reporting abusive behavior, the Nasser case, how empower the g...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor José González-Alonso from Brunel Univesity London. We discussed exercise in the heat, dehydration, fluid ingestion, blood flow, metabolism and human circulation. He has a very strong research track record having researched these areas for around 35 years. We discuss how he began his career doing research with some very big names. 0:00. Introduction and how Jo...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Kirsty Elliott-Sale from Manchester Metropolitan University, England. She is an expert on female exercise physiology . We discuss the effects of the menstrual cycle, oral contraception, pregnancy and the menopause on exercise performance. As will become apparent, more research needs to be done on these important areas. 0:00. Introduction and Kirsty’s intro to...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Stuart Phillips from McMaster University in Canada. He is the world expert on protein needs for optimal muscle mass with exercise. We discussed gaining muscle to combat losing muscle. The discussion centered around resistance training, dietary protein needs, whether need protein from meat, the timing of protein intake, the need for protein supplements and pro...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Samuele Marcora from the University of Bologna in Italy. He is an expert on the psychobiology of endurance performance and fatigue. We discussed the importance of the perception of effort/rating of perceived exertion on exercise performance and fatigue. Pros and cons of zoning in vs zoning out. How the perception of effort can be modified by factors such as e...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Graham Holloway from the University of Guelph in Canada. He is an expert on mitochondrial bioenergetics. We discussed the effect of exercise intensity and duration and exercise training on fat/lipid and carbohydrate metabolism, whether alterations in substrate availability such as high fat diets, high fat meals, high carbohydrate meals etc affect fat oxidatio...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Mark Hargreaves from the University of Melbourne in Australia. He is a leader in exercise metabolism/physiology and was Glenn’s PhD supervisor. The discussion centred around the effects of muscle glycogen availability and carbohydrate (CHO) ingestion on exercise metabolism and also performance/fatigue. There was also discussion of  high fat/ketogenic die...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Paul Greenhaff from the University of Nottingham in England. He has been a leader in exercise metabolism research for over 30 years. He was the top global researcher in creatine and exercise for many years. His focus over several years has been on inactivity. We discuss the metabolic effects of inactivity and immobilization on insulin sensitivity and protein...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Grégoire Millet from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. He is an absolute world leader in research into altitude training and hypoxic conditioning. This area has progressed greatly from Live High-Train High (LHTH) to Live High-Train Low (LHTL), LLTH and LHTL (and High). The type of attitude training/hypoxic conditioning one would undertake depends on...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor John Thyfault from the University of Kansas Medical Center. We discuss how when one takes in more calories than they expend, this results in elevated fat and glucose in the blood which disrupts liver metabolism. This can result in fatty liver and insulin resistance. Exercise can prevent and treat fatty liver even independently of body weight. There are import...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Javier Gonzalez from the University of Bath. We discuss carbohydrate (CHO) metabolism at rest when fasted vs fed, during exercise when fasted vs fed and the effects of exercise on metabolism after a meal. We also discuss muscle and liver glycogen resynthesis and the effects of different types and amounts of carbohydrate. Finally, we touch on Javier’s study wi...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Katrien de Bock from ETH Zürich - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. We discussed how exercise training increases blood vessels in skeletal muscle. Also muscle cells and blood vessels in regards to injury/repair and cancer. We also discussed exercise and leucine sensitivity.   0:00. Introduction  2:00. What is the vasculature. Blood vessels Endo...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Herman Pontzer who is a Human Evolutionary anthropologist from Duke University. Herman has undertaken research with current day hunter gather communities and shown that although they are a lot more physically active than western societies, their average energy expenditures are not higher!! Constrained energy model (energy compensation): that when exercise the...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Laurie Goodyear from the Joslin Diabetes Centre at Harvard Medical School. Laurie is a very big name in the field of exercise metabolism with a remarkable track record. She has examined glucose and fat metabolism during exercise and more recently has been focusing on developmental origins of health and disease and the benefits of exercise. Exercise of the mot...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Håkan Westerblad from the Karolinska Insitute in Sweden. Håkan is a massive name in the field examining the mechanisms of muscle fatigue. The first 20 min is a general discussion of fatigue during exercise which is suitable for a general audience. Then it becomes more complex as as we discuss the mechanisms causing fatigue.   0:00. Introduction  0:5...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Associate Professor Abigail Mackey from the University of Copenhagen. Abigail is an expert on muscle injury, repair and aging.  They discussed these plus the protective effect of repeated bouts of eccentric exercise, whether it’s smart to take anti-inflammatories after injury, different types and areas of injuries, causes of injuries, treatment of muscle injuries,...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Jorgen Wojtaszewski from the University of Copenhagen. Jorgen has an exceptional track record of research examining how exercise increases glucose uptake during the exercise and how exercise increases the sensitivity of muscle to insulin. We discuss insulin resistance, insulin sensitivity, type 1 diabetes and exercise, type 2 diabetes and exercise, glucose up...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Dr Trent Stellingwerff from the Canadian Sport Institute Pacific. Trent has a very interesting background in applied research and translation through coaching Olympic athletes etc. Formerly head of R&D at PowerBar. In a really fun chat we talked mainly about his research with the very important relatively new area of relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S). RED...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Dr Nick Tiller from Harbor UCLA. Nick is a COPD and exercise researcher with other interests such as ultramarathon. However, the focus of this episode is on his expertise in regards to the importance of being skeptical of health and fitness claims. He has written the book A skeptics guide to sports science. He makes some very important points re critical thinking, conf...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Michael Joyner from the Mayo Clinic. He has a remarkable background being an anaesthesiologist with wealth of research experience and knowledge in exercise physiology. More recently he has published around 20 high impact papers on the use of convalescent plasma in Covid19! An example of how he is so open to new ideas. A very interesting chat. Twitter: @DrMJoy...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Stuart Biddle who has a dual affiliation with the University of Southern Queensland (Australia) and the University of Jyvaskyla (Finland).  A very interesting and informative chat with lots to think about. Stuart feels that we need to focus more on the environment than we have done, as well as the individual (particularly affect/feeling states/enjoyment)...

Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Paige Geiger from the University of Kansas Medical Centre on Heat therapy, exercise and chronic disease. Paige has undertaken very important mechanistic and allied work in this field. We discussed many things (see time stamps below).   0:00. Introduction how got into the area  6:26. How first idea to look at heat and diabetes Phil Hooper in 1999 put...