The following is my contribution to an email exchange on fueling for performance:

Hello lads. I’ve been thinking about this for the past week or so, because I think that both food prescriptions and food “freescriptions” have their place. It depends on the sport-type and the goal.

The number one performance contributor (WAY above fuel choices) — especially when juggling devoted sport, full-time work and kids — is inviolate consistency. By “inviolate consistency” I mean regular practice of the pursuit at the willing expense of spousal tension, less income, missing special events, neglecting vehicle maintenance, not shoveling the walk, etc. Consistent, indefinite practice will trump diet plans and steroids every time, even at low intensity.

In my opinion, most of the appeal for diet plans comes from a lottery mentality that looks for the “winning ticket/magic bullet” that will short-cut true commitment. “Maybe if I just change what I eat, then I’ll be rad.” It can’t happen, which is why most people will always be mediocre athletes: they won’t commit to the process.

However, at serious skill levels, the real impact of food measuring depends entirely on the nature of the sport — macro-movement-based or micro-movement-based. I define macro-movement sports as anything that a 5-year-old can successfully mimic in the playground — i.e. running, jumping, lifting, throwing, Crossfit, climbing a ladder, etc. Essentially, basic human skills that we are all naturals at, and where refining technique only makes a real difference at an internationally elite level. In the spectrum of climbing types, macro-movement sport would also include alpine climbing since 99% of the time your weight is on your legs, movement pattern demands are not complex, and the true crux is always mental.

I define micro-movement sports as pursuits that humans can become incredibly skilled at, but pursuits that do not come naturally — i.e. they are not skills that we had to use in the jungle when we were knuckle-dragging. These are refined human movements that take at least a decade to be good at — despite what two-month punters wish for and banter about. Examples are gymnastics, most martial arts (especially brazilian ju-jutsu where the black belt average is ten years of dedicated training), ballet, bouldering, sport climbing, etc.

Because macro-movement sports “come naturally”, real performance gains happen primarily when fitness increases — i.e. when the engine gets extra cylinders. Because micro-movement sports do not come naturally (to all of us, including Bruce Lee, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Chris Sharma), real performance gains happen primarily through STUDYING MOVEMENT, and NOT through fitness. “The best training for climbing is climbing.”

(As a side note, if we were to take two beginner climbers — one a master rower, and one a master martial artist — my bet is that the martial artist would progress faster because a lifetime of studying movement will create a physical awareness that a lifetime of pulling hard on an oar cannot equal.)

That being the case, measuring your food ain’t gonna help micro-movement sports worth a shit. If the only variable you’re obsessing about is food, you ain’t gonna jump from 5.10 to 5.12. I suspect that martial artists, gymnasts and ballet dancers would agree. You can inject whatever you want into your metabolism, and it’ll never help you do a triple back flip on floor, giants on highbar, some fancy ballet move, or climb V13. For micro-movement sports, fuel choice doesn’t #&^%ing matter.

However, measuring your food for macro-movement sports makes a HUGE difference, especially if the (Paleo) Zone is the recipe of choice… In those videos that Josh sent, Glassman is exactly right when he compares the performance gains of food-measurers versus non-. When doing macro-movement sports, micro attention to nutrient ratios and to portion size makes a huge difference. Given identical training methods, the food-measurer will pull away on a (Paleo) Zone food program (most likely due to accelerated recovery).

Once-were macro-movement athletes may anecdotally argue against this, but if so, were they eating the Zone prescription religiously for at least one month? (One month is typically the time frame where the Zone will “kick in.”) Or were they eating primarily an outdated, carb-heavy prescription? Most will have done the carb-heavy latter. From what I’ve read, Mark Allen, the winningest Iron Man in history, stuck to a caloric training ratio of 30-30-40 for protein, fat and carbs — the same as the Zone formula.)

HOWEVER, for true endurance events — i.e. events lasting 120 minutes or more — the Zone is insufficient as a fuel source. (I haven’t found anything on it, but I suspect that even Allen changed the ratios when he was racing.) The Zone is geared toward short duration macro-movements — like Crossfit, swimming pools and “distance” running. For true endurance events, you need to up the carb content slightly before the event, definitely during, and for a time period following relative to the length of the event. Not doing so will probably not sacrifice much in performance during the event, but it’ll take much longer to recover afterward.

So if I were training for a macro-movement sport or event, I would do Crossfit primarily with at least one long (>90-minute) session per week (mostly to train recovery), and strictly eat in the (Paleo) Zone for all but the long session.

But right now I’m grimping, so I eat what I want.

My two cents,
Scott

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