Optimizing endurance performance: metrics, nutrition, lactate, and more insights from elite performers | Olav Aleksander Bu (Pt. 2)

**Peter Attia** (0:11)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Drive podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia. This podcast, my website and my weekly newsletter all focus on the goal of translating the science of longevity into something accessible for everyone. Our goal is to provide the best content in health and wellness, and we've established a great team of analysts to make this happen. It is extremely important to me to provide all of this content without relying on paid ads. To do this, our work is made entirely possible by our members, and in return, we offer exclusive member-only content and benefits above and beyond what is available for free. If you want to take your knowledge of this space to the next level, it's our goal to ensure members get back much more than the price of the subscription. If you want to learn more about the benefits of our premium membership, head over to peterattiamd.com/subscribe. My guest this week is Olav Aleksander Bu. Olav was a guest in March of 2024 And at the time of that conversation, I realized we hadn't got through the majority of what I wanted to speak about. So it was inevitable that I would have him back. Olav is an endurance coach, exercise scientist, engineer and physiologist. He is the head of performance for Norway Triathlon and is best known for coaching two of the world's top triathletes, Christian Blumenfeldt and Gustaf Idén. In this episode, we review his work and his approach to coaching and the way that he relies very heavily on data. We talk about and define various performance metrics like FTP, functional threshold power, critical power, anaerobic threshold, lactate threshold, VO2 max and the importance of consistent protocols when testing these performance metrics and how they can vary depending on an athlete's training. We discuss differences in training methodologies across sports and how different sports and activities influence power, pace and endurance. We look at the significance of nutrition in endurance sports, how athletes train to properly fuel themselves for races and why this is so different from what has been done historically. In fact, we really got into this difference in carbohydrate metabolism. Just like the first time Olav and I spoke, this is a discussion that can be quite complex at some points. We do get a little bit into the weeds, but the truth of it is because of the nature of what we're talking about, it's very difficult to talk about these things meaningfully and superficially. Patience is always appreciated and the rewards are always there if you're able to stick with it. So without further delay, please enjoy my conversation with Olav Aleksander Bu.
Olav, thank you very much for coming to Austin on your way. I guess you're on your way to Arizona?

**Olav Aleksander Bu** (2:57)
Yes, on my way to Flagstaff. So also thank you very much for having me again. Yeah.

**Peter Attia** (3:02)
Well, as I mentioned last time we spoke, I had a lot of notes. We got through, I think, one-eighth of them. So there's kind of a lot to cover today. And of course, as we've been sitting here for the last 15 minutes or so, we've already kind of started the podcast, unfortunately. And I want to go right to where we just left off, but I'm going to resist the urge. Last time we spoke really about sort of the most nuanced ins and outs of cardiorespiratory fitness. Maybe just for the person who didn't catch that episode, can you give the one minute version of what you do and why you're certainly one of the few people that would be poised to talk about what we're going to talk about today?

**Olav Aleksander Bu** (3:38)
I'm not very good at the pitches. My background is from engineering, and it means also that this principle have guided me quite a lot through my journey in endurance sports or in sports in general. We embarked on a journey 10 years ago, more than 10 years ago, I would say now 15 years ago, where we started to do what I would call extreme in-depth and longitudinal studies on two of the arguably fittest athletes in the whole world. Yeah, I think that pretty much resembles it. Obviously, a large part of that also involves technology development, simply because we are at the edge of basically what we have available information, research on. And that means that even in some cases, we have to develop technology to allow us to even progress the understanding of getting a more granular understanding of why things are the way they are.

**Peter Attia** (4:27)
Yeah, so in many ways, you're kind of an applied scientist.

**Olav Aleksander Bu** (4:29)