As an endurance athlete, I spent the better part of my twenties training for and running ultramarathons. My body was resilient, productively absorbing 60- to 100-mile training weeks and races just as long, and I thought that would continue indefinitely.

Then, over the course of nine months, I developed intermittent but often excruciating sciatica, nerve pain that originates in the lower back and radiates down the leg, and eventually, as a result of changing my running gait to compensate for this pain, a torn hip labrum. I expected rest—the do-nothing, on-the-couch type rest—to eventually heal me, but the pain persisted. I saw massage therapists, chiropractors, acupuncturists, bone and joint specialists, and nerve doctors. No one had a clear answer and no treatment worked.

It was at this vulnerable moment, in 2020, that I discovered the Knees Over Toes Guy. Ben Patrick, a then 30-year-old based in Clearwater, Florida, posted videos of himself on Instagram performing scroll-stopping feats of circus athleticism without any apparent discomfort: springing from a stationary deep squat up to dunk a basketball; where, from a standing position, he drops his knees out forward to touch the ground. These exercises put a remarkable amount of pressure on very vulnerable joints.

In nearly every video, Patrick shares that he has had three knee surgeries, and doctors told him he would never be able to squat or play basketball without pain again. But through an unconventional—and some might say dangerous—strength training protocol, Patrick was not only able to effectively eliminate his pain, but he says he was able to increase his speed and vertical jump to well beyond his youthful PRs. His message was that anyone can achieve that same ability and resilience. But in order to do so, you’d have to forget most everything you’ve been told about strength training.

The internet is rife with fitness hucksters and overpriced, overcomplicated training plans, but Patrick seemed different. As I read the hundreds of comments under his videos, I was struck by how universally positive everyone was, with sincere-seeming testimonials for his online program, gratitude for introducing them to these unconventional movements, and encouragement towards users who shared their stories of chronic pain. I was also impressed by the numerous physical therapists . Desperate to regain autonomy over my athleticism, I decided to give his exercises a try.

Over the last four years, Patrick has exploded in popularity, going from a trainer and gym owner to an online fitness mega-personality with 2.4 million Instagram followers. Patrick, who declined to speak with us for this article, has shared his origin story on many podcasts, including the mega-popular Joe Rogan Experience, which has 14.5 million followers on Spotify and 17.6 million on YouTube.

As an obsessive youth basketball player, his passion for the sport and penchant for grueling drills (he would frequently perform 1,000 daily layups) led to painful, fragile knees. His teammates nicknamed him Old Man. After Patrick underwent those three knee surgeries—the first while he was still a teenager—he discovered the late, famed Canadian strength coach Charles Poliquin, who preached a style of strength training where each rep is taken to its stretched end range. The priority is not just the amount of weight you can lift, but the body’s ability to move into deeper positions while doing so. (Poliquin was noted for his Seussian soundbite: “Strength is gained in the range it is trained.”)

Patrick adopted Poliquin’s training techniques and not only eliminated his chronic knee pain, he says, but began to redevelop his athleticism. At age 23, he was offered a full-ride scholarship to play D1 basketball at Eastern Florida State College. Now, as a trainer, he proselytizes this training philosophy through his unsubtly named app and online coaching business, Athletic Truth Group.

Part of Patrick’s success can be attributed to his origin story and his social media savvy: his videos are short, attention grabbing, and feature practical training advice. With the bracing sincerity of a youth camp counselor, he talks directly to the camera, appearing trustworthy and capable. But the other part is that this style of training—which Poliquin pioneered and Patrick champions—is, by historic standards, radical.

If you have ever spent time in a weight room, you’ve likely been warned that your knees should never go past your toes in a squat. Instead, you should push your butt backwards and stop when the upper and lower leg form a 90-degree angle. Failing to do so will put too much pressure on your knee and cause injury.

This is only half true. Squatting with your knees over your toes does put pressure on the joint, but that pressure may actually help you avoid injury.

“Tendons, cartilage, ligaments—all those things will toughen up to load,” says Erik Meira, a physical therapist and rehab specialist based in Portland, Oregon, who works with NBA and NFL players. For most athletes, especially those in endurance sports, injuries occur in the connective tissues of the joints. Tendons, while quite different in composition than muscles, still operate under the same principle: to get them stronger, you must use them in a mildly stressful manner, then back off and let them recover.

“Knees over toes is something that has been vilified for a long time as causing pain to the front of the knee,” says Meira. “The reality is it will cause pain if you’re not conditioned to take that kind of load. But the best way to condition yourself to that kind of load is to get used to positions like that.”

Patrick has taken this philosophy—that bending your knees under progressive load will make them healthy and strong—and applied it to other vulnerable parts of the body including the ankles, hips, lower back, shoulders, and elbows. In a way, Patrick’s protocol could be seen as a gym routine structured entirely around proactive physical therapy: he identifies problem areas and develops strength and range of motion in the local musculature and connective tissue.

It is a tremendously appealing proposition to many endurance athletes, who are traditionally averse to the gym. Here is a style of strength training that doesn’t prioritize muscle mass, is singularly focused on avoiding pain, and will allow you to fully express yourself physically outside of the gym.

In 2020, I was one of many impressionable scrollers transfixed by Patrick and his message. Without much to lose, I dedicated myself to 16 weeks of his program through the app. The first cycle, a full-body general protocol called Zero, was easy. I did repetitive, progressive bodyweight exercises—some familiar, some novel—to strengthen mind-muscle connections and expose my joints to new movement patterns. Then, four weeks later, came Dense, where you take these same and other similar exercises, add weight, and perform many sets to condition your joints through repetition under manageable load. Four weeks after that, I moved on to a back-specific training program.

The most significant movement for me in this block was the , which you perform on a forward-angled, hip-high bench that allows you to hinge forward from the hips and directly strengthen the lower back muscles. This was terrifying, as I thought putting my injured back in that exposed position would only hurt it further. But this is precisely what this program is trying to teach: safely training in a vulnerable position creates resilience in that position.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CjTz7R8NkJx/

“The most important part of rehabilitation is graded exposure,” says Mike Istraetel, the popular online fitness commentator who holds a doctorate in exercise science. “You want a little bit of irritation, then back off and heal up… The biggest mistake people make in a gym is assuming a degree of fragility to their body.”

And while Patrick emphasizes the importance of developing strength in tendons themselves, there’s also another factor at work. “Tendons take up to nine months, if not more, of consistently loading to heal and grow stronger,” says Matt Klein, a rehabilitation and movement science professor at George Fox University. “But patients can have an acute decrease in pain [when they first start training the injured joint] and that’s not because the tendon has changed. That’s because their perception of pain—a fear response—has changed.”

Meira explains that fear activates our nervous system and sends us into a dysfunctional “protective mode.”  “We see this a lot with low back pain,” Meira says. “An individual starts to fear taking load and their back gets weaker. Then they ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t take more load, then they fear it more, and they end up in a downward spiral where their back is made out of glass.”

With this mindset, I performed small reps at first, barely leaning forward a few inches, then the next time I went a little deeper, and so on until months later, I was doing 20 full range reps. Eventually I started holding a weight to my chest as I leaned forward, taxing my low back further. And an amazing thing happened: my sciatica went away. Gone, vanished. The insidious nerve pain that for years—literally years—I tried to roll, massage, stretch, and rest away, finally disappeared. All it needed, it turned out, was to get stronger.

“The biggest mistake I see with athletes is resting for wellness,” says Meira. “Let’s say the front of my knee gets sensitive when I run. I think I’m going to stop putting any load on it and let that heal. Then once it heals I’ll go back to what I’m doing. But when I’m resting it, the front of that knee isn’t getting any stimulus, so it’s not learning to take load. It’s being de-conditioned to load. Being overprotective is often what gives us issues.” This is ultimately Patrick’s message: to heal your body, you must use your body.

“Ten years ago we still had a postural fear model: you should not put your knees over your toes because that’s going to cause you knee pain; you should not slouch because that’s going to cause you neck pain,” says Klein. “The current evidence suggests that the perfect posture is the one you’re in for the least amount of time. Move. People are going to be slumped forward and extended and everything in between. Your body is meant to move in these ways. If your body is having trouble in a position, train in that position more.”

As I progressed through the program, it became evident that there are only about two dozen total exercises that Patrick repeatedly prescribes. If you’ve never performed these movements, the app—which coaches you through proper form—is invaluable. The back extension machine was revelatory for me and got me out of pain and back to the sport I love.

But as I rebuilt my running body and tried to progress deeper into his program, I ran up against his one-size-fits-most approach, an unfortunate and necessary limitation of mass-marketed fitness programs. For instance, deadlifts, which Ben prescribes, still hurt my back no matter how gentle or light I went.

No program will serve as the answer to everything, says Klein. “I think [Patrick] is helping a lot of people,” he says. “But I also think it can hurt a lot of people.” Klein points out that athletes should only try these training protocols after taking the time to pursue an accurate diagnosis with doctors and physical therapists—to ensure they’re treating the right thing.

After two years, I stopped following Patrick’s program through his app, but his philosophies have fundamentally changed how I think about exercise. Now, four years since I began his protocol, running is still my priority, but I only run four days a week instead of six. Strength training two to three times a week is non-negotiable. Each session is full-body and joint-focused, and at least half of the exercises I perform are ones I learned through his program. I haven’t gone a week without a back extension in two years. But the most important thing the Knees Over Toes Guy has taught me is as simple and radical as this: to keep athletically progressing and doing what you love into your thirties and beyond, you have to get strong. Spending time in the gym is a real-time fight against aging.

Despite the reduction in my running volume, I’m still getting faster, winning races, and setting PRs. But the thing I’m most proud of: I’m doing it all without pain.

The Knees Over Toes Philosophy

Strength Train

If you are injury-prone, aging, or looking to maximize your body’s potential, you MUST strength train. Full stop. Two or three times a week is ideal, but once a week is better than nothing. Perhaps this is obvious, but it bears repeating to strength-shy endurance athletes.

Measurably Strengthen Vulnerable Areas

Identify the muscles that support your body’s most vulnerable areas and train them unyieldingly. For ankles, this means targeting your calves (encompassing both the soleus and gastrocnemius) and tibialis anterior, the oft-ignored muscle on the front of the lower leg. For knees, it’s mainly quads and hamstrings. And for hips and back, well, it’s your hip flexors and back muscles. Do this in a manner that you can measure, such as weight lifted or reps completed, and work to improve those metrics. This is in contrast to many other runners’ strength programs, where you’ll likely find complex kettlebell swinging workouts, yogic core stability routines, or resistance band “activation” drills. There’s nothing inherently bad about these exercises, but they fail to give you a way to measure their progress. They are also inefficient at genuinely strengthening the muscles and tendons that do the most for you.

Build Balance

Nearly everyone has practiced squatting. But when was the last time you did the opposite–that is, lifted weight up off the ground with your legs instead of lowering weight toward the ground? Over time, certain exercises have become popular while their counterbalancing movements have not. Most athletes train their calves but not their tibialis anterior; their squat but not their hip flexors; their abs but not their lower back. To be a high-performing pain-free athlete, you must train both sides of the body, and both sides of any joint.

Regress

If pain pops up, as it is bound to, do not stop training that area. Instead, regress the movement (e.g. less weight, smaller range of motion, and/or fewer reps) to the point where you feel no pain. But do not cease to use that area of the body entirely. Pain is bad and you should never work through pain—but motion is lotion.

Length Through Strength

Static stretching is not the panacea for health that it was once thought to be. However, the mobility (i.e. range of motion) of your joints and muscles is incredibly important and is correlated with healthier tissue. So how do we reconcile those two truths? We work to lengthen while strengthening. This means that for every exercise, you should be feeling a stretch at the top or bottom of the movement, and you should perform every exercise with the greatest bend in the targeted joint that you can achieve without pain. (Often, this means starting by lifting lighter weights.)

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Can’t find enough time in the day to get to the gym? Too cold to run outside? With this equipment, you can get it done under your own roof, on your own time, with your own stuff, no excuses.

CycleOps M2 Smart TrainerĚý($600)

Made to work with both road and mountain bikes, offers quiet electromagnetic resistance and is compatible with nearly all virtual training programs. It folds up in seconds to stash in a closet or the garage.

´Ü·Éľ±´ÚłŮĚýł§łÜ˛ú˛őł¦°ůľ±±čłŮľ±´Ç˛Ô ($45 for three months)

lets trainer-bound cyclists gamify their workouts and compete in real time against other riders. A new treadmill program gets runners in on the action.

Metolius Wood Grips Deluxe II Hang BoardĚý($99)

All athletes can benefit from strong backs, shoulders, and arms, but at-home pull-up bars are ugly and can destroy your doorframe. The solution: , which features a variety of holds designed for climbers and screws neatly into the wall.

Jade Yoga Harmony MatĚý($80)

The U.S.-made works just as well for stretching and core work as it does for yoga by improving grip, adding cushioning, and keeping sweat off the floor.

XYLsports Jump RopeĚý($7)

A jump rope is simply great for everything from warming up and full cardio sessions to HIIT and agility sets.  from XYLsports is highly durable, shortens from ten feet to variable lengths, and has com­fortable foam grips.

NordicTrack X22i Incline TreadmillĚý($2,793)

Running indoors doesn’t have to mean ditching hill drills. NordicTrack’s rises to a whopping 40 percent grade and slopes down to negative 6.

Rep Fitness Kettlebells ($17 and up)

Kettlebells can be used for functional arm and leg workouts, big lifts, or adding resistance to bodyweight exercises. in this set have wide, flat bottoms, which makes them exceptionally stable.

Perform Better First Place Mini Bands ($18 for four)

Resistance bands help runners and hikers stretch their all-important glutes and warm up their hip flexors. come in a range of strengths, from light to extra heavy.

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Of the  Grand Canyon, only 1 percent venture below the rim. A fraction of those cross the canyon in what’s called the rim-to-rim hike. An even smaller group turn back around and do it again, traveling rim to rim to rim.

But over the past ten years, this singularly difficult and awe-inspiring traverse has, for better or worse, garnered a reputation as a requisite proving ground for elite ultramarathoners, where some of the sport’s youngest and most promising come to vie for the coveted fastest known time, or FKT.

“The Grand Canyon has to be one of the most classic and sought after FKTs in the country,” says Peter Bakwin, co-creator and moderator of the popular . “It has always been a classic adventure—to be able to run across it and back is pretty special.”

The Most Popular Rim to Rim to Rim Route

The vast majority of hikers and runners start on the South Rim, descending via the South Kaibab or Bright Angel Trail to the river and ascending out the North Kaibab Trail. A rim-to-rim crossing is roughly 21 miles with around 5,700 feet of vertical gain and 4,700-foot descent one way. A rim-to-rim-to-rim traverse doubles that.

A handful of factors merge to make the Grand Canyon one of the most difficult single-day runs in the country: the quad-busting descent, which runners face immediately; the unrelenting and exposed switchbacks; the unpredictable and intense heat (temperatures often vary by as much as 20 to 30 degrees from the rim to the base of the canyon); and the isolation.

“There are very few other examples of that type of geography,” says Rob Krar, a Flagstaff-based ultrarunner who, in 2013, set a since-broken R2R2R FKT of 6:21:47. “Where else in the world do you start a run where you drop 5,000 feet in elevation? Mentally and physically, it is incredibly demanding.”

Early FKT Attempts

The first recorded R2R2R FKT was set at 7:51:23, in November 1981, by local runner Allyn Cureton. (He had established the rim-to-rim FKT one month before.) It would be another 25 years before his mark was broken and today’s FKT phenomenon was born. This is in part, says Bakwin, because many thought Cureton’s time couldn’t be beat. Since 2006, however, both the men’s and women’s record , with Cat Bradley, Rob Krar, Dakota Jones, Darcy Piceu, Bethany Lewis, and Kyle Skaggs setting R2R2R FKTs early in their notable careers. Jim Walmsley, widely considered one of the most talented active ultrarunners, set the current men’s record of 5:55:20 . The women’s record of 7:25:58 was set by Taylor Nowlin in 2018.

The degree of difficulty, combined with the canyon’s extraordinary geology, has made it a bucket-list item for thousands of non-elite trail runners as well. This has become an issue for an already overcrowded park. Around 2013, park officials—who say publicly that they do not recommend anyone, hikers or runners, descend from the rim to the river and back out in one day—noticed a rise in organized running or fastpacking groups in the canyon, and in their wake, increased amounts of abandoned gear, litter, human waste, trail conflicts, congestion at trailheads, and crowding at restrooms, where lines often stretch to 100 people. In fact, since 2013, when the park began monitoring trail traffic, the number of people attempting rim-to-rim day trips has increased steadily every year.

Will the R2R2R Challenge Keep Drawing Ultrarunners?

In 2014, the park began requiring permits for any group, regardless of size, that plans rim-to-rim or extended day hikes in the canyon and advertises to the public or compensates the organizer. The park also created a preventative search and rescue team, or PSAR, that’s dispatched into the canyon to provide hikers or runners with information regarding trail and weather conditions, as well as salty snacks and electrolyte beverages to visitors in need.

Despite the increase in popularity and notoriety, running in the canyon will never lose its magic, says Cat Bradley, who set a women’s R2R2R FKT in 2016 that has since been broken. Despite winning the highly competitive and prestigious Western States 100 last year, Bradley calls her FKT the most fulfilling project of her running career.

“You know, everyone out [in the canyon] is sort of experiencing what I experienced to some degree,” Bradley says. “In the middle of the canyon, whether you’re alone or not, people work to get down there and they work to get back out. You feel a sense of community with those people. I think as long as we keep it self-propelled, it will not lose its sanctity.”

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Scientists have a firm grasp on the purpose of certain automatic physical functions, like blinking, breathing, or digestion. When it comes to sleep, however, researchers still aren’t clear on why exactly your body needs to shut off every night. Details aside, one thing’s for sure: When you don’t sleep, your body revolts.

The effects of acute sleep deprivation—which is more akin to pulling an all-nighter than to getting just a few hours of sleep every night for weeks at a time (that’s chronic sleep deprivation)—generally kick in after 16 to 18 hours of being awake and get progressively worse with each proceeding hour. Your mind, heart, endocrine system, and immune system are all affected, malfunctioning in ways both subtle and severe.

The consequences of chronic sleep deprivation are far worse than one sleepless night. But the decision to pull an all-nighter just once can leave some serious damage in its wake.

Your Mind on Acute Sleep Deprivation

When it comes to the effects of acute sleep deprivation, “It’s really all about the brain,” says Steven Feinsilver, director of sleep medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital and a leading sleep researcher. The first signal that your body is overtired will be a sluggish mind. Your reaction time will begin lagging around hour 18; after a full night without sleep, it will —which, for context, is as being legally drunk. Your ability to form memories will start deteriorating, and after a while, your capacity to create any new memories at all will shut off entirely.

“It’s almost as though without sleep, the memory inbox of the brain shuts down,” Matthew Walker, a UC-Berkeley professor and author of Why We Sleep, told last year. “So those new incoming informational emails are just bounced.”

From hour 18 onward, your decision-making and math-processing abilities and your spatial awareness slowly deteriorate.

Stay up longer than 24 hours and your brain, now in panic mode, will soon take over and force sleep upon you. “You’re basically going to have microsleeps,” Feinsilver says. Though you will appear to be awake—walking, talking, eyes open—your brain will quite literally put itself to sleep for ten to 20 seconds at a time.

During these microsleeps, you ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t process what you’re seeing around you. “We say during sleep you are cortically blind—your brain does not process visual information,” Feinsilver says. “Your brain goes on on autopilot. So, if you’re driving, you might realize that you missed your exit and don’t remember the last ten minutes. And that’s really scary stuff, because it means you’ve been asleep for moments when you really should be awake.”

Stay up for longer than 35 hours, as Walker and a team of scientists from Berkeley and Harvard had research subjects do in a , and your emotional mind will start behaving irrationally. When you’re up for that long, the emotion-emitting amygdala becomes 60 percent more reactive to negative stimuli or experience, while also limiting communication with the part of the brain that regulates emotion and contextualizes experiences. In other words, you’re more reactive and judgmental to the people and events around you, and your brain loses its natural ability to run things through a filter or any internal voice of reason.

If you’re up past 48 hours, hallucinations are common, as Feinsilver experienced firsthand years ago as a medical student. It was October, just before Halloween, and while he was suffering from both acute and weeks of chronic sleep deprivation, a nearby pumpkin started talking to him. “I realized, okay, it’s time to go home,” Feinsilver says.

Stay up for longer than 48 hours and you’re looking at behavior that mimics psychosis—incoherent rambling, disconnection from reality, prone to outbursts. Push yourself longer than a few days without sleep, and the effects can be . The exact ways in which sleep deprivation can cause you to die , but researchers believe it has to do with your mind losing its ability to control life-giving processes and the total disruption of your system that results.

So, why exactly does the brain malfunction in such a profound way without sleep? Researchers aren’t exactly sure, but their best guess has to do with something they’ve dubbed “substance S.”

“The brain is a very active metabolic area. When it works full-time, it generates toxic products,” Feinsilver says. “It’s like when you work out: Your muscles build up lactate, and eventually you ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t do anything more because it hurts, and it’s time to let them relax. Your brain is kind of on all the time while you’re awake, and sleep is designed to be a time to get rid of the toxic products that build up.” Substance S—which scientists think might be adenosine, a byproduct of metabolism that builds up in the blood—might be the toxic metabolite that accumulates in the brain throughout the day, and the need to flush it could be the reason your brain demands sleep every night.

At this point, though, the daily buildup of this metabolite and whether the brain is responsible for purging it during sleep is still only a theory “It’s just a good way of explaining why people might need sleep—it’s the most efficient way to purge a toxic product,” Feinsilver says.

Mechanism aside, we know that “wakefulness is essentially low-level brain damage,” Walker said in an interview with .

How No Sleep Affects Your Heart

Your blood pressure rises over the course of the day, usually due to the physical and emotional stressors you inevitably encounter. Every night while you sleep, your blood pressure (as well as your heart rate) drops back down. Sleep, in other words, is a natural blood pressure medication. Without that daily reboot, it steadily rises, and your risk of heart attack, stroke, and even long-term heart disease skyrockets.

If you’re awake for longer than 18 hours, your heart doesn’t get its daily respite, and that can have lethal consequences. In fact, research has that on the Monday after spring daylight saving time, when we lose an hour of sleep, there’s a 25 percent increase in heart attacks. Conversely, in the fall, when we gain an extra hour, there is a 21 percent reduction in heart attacks. While scientists aren’t exactly sure why this is happening, it is clear that sleep—or lack thereof—has an immediate effect on your heart.

Consequences for Your Endocrine System

Sleep is vital for hormone production, and if you’re up for more than 18 hours, your testosterone will slowly , affecting energy levels. The good news: Studies have that a subsequent night of good sleep can work to return testosterone levels to normal.

Where you get into real trouble, hormonally speaking, is after days, weeks, or months of bad sleep—when you dig yourself into a hole that your body ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t get out of. have shown that just one week of sleep deprivation—less than five hours per night—dropped young male’s testosterone levels by a whopping 10 to 15 percent. For comparison, a healthy individual’s testosterone will naturally decline by 1 to 2 percent per year. In other words, as far as your hormonal system is concerned, a week of bad sleep will age you a decade.

How One Bad Night Hurts Your Immune System

As you stay awake for longer than 18 hours, your body starts to build up pro-inflammatory proteins like IL-6, a blood marker associated with chronic health conditions and heart disease. Your number of immune cells begins to decline as well, as your body is deprived of its opportunity to make more.

Fight sleep even longer and your body will have a harder time producing natural killer cells, which fight cancer and virus-infected cells in your body. In fact, researchers have that just one night of poor sleep reduces the amount by over 70 percent. Not sleeping will profoundly and immediately increase your risk for cancer, which is part of the reason that, in 2007, the World Health Organization nighttime shift work a probable carcinogen.

The Impact on Your Performance

If the body malfunctions, it’s safe to assume that your performance takes a hit as well, right? Yes, but the effect is more mental than physical. According to Shona Halson, senior recovery physiologist at the Australian Institute of Sport who specializes in sleep, “During exercise, you don’t see many changes in the physiological systems.” Instead, she says, “What we tend to see are changes in perception of effort. Everything feels harder, so you’ll do worse on a performance test, not because of physiological changes, but because your perception of effort has changed.”

And that’s a fact worth broadcasting, says Halson, because everyone has felt that panic after only managing a few hours of sleep before a big race. You’ll certainly feel tired, and your brain might be a little foggy, but you can still extract your fitness potential. “It’s important to tell athletes that if you get one bad night of sleep, the 20 years of training you have previously done doesn’t go away,” Halson says. “Your fatigability may have gone up a little bit after one bad night, but if it’s an important event, adrenaline usually kicks in.”

That’s not to say you shouldn’t be mindful of your performance after a bad night’s sleep. Halson says that in long endurance events or team sports, where there are more cognitive and emotional components than, say, a 100-meter sprint, a sleep-deprived brain can play tricks on the body. The best thing you can do: Remind yourself that you’ve put in the work and that the cloudiness you’re feeling is more likely than not just your brain asking for sleep.

Illustration by

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When midday hunger hits and you realize you have nothing to eat, it’s easy to turn to an unhealthy option. “All of us do it. You’re grabbing this and grabbing that, and then you end up with poor choices,” says chef Biju Thomas, founder of Denver-based restaurant Little Curry Shop and co-author the athlete-focused .

If it’s not a Clif bar or handfuls of office-kitchen freebies, many people default to wraps and sandwiches. While these are portable and filling, they’re also heavy on simple carbs, especially those made using bread without nuts, whole grains, or seeds. That’s fine occasionally, but in the middle of a sedentary workday, the energy spike and subsequent crash can wreak havoc on both your productivity and your fitness. “You want something that’s substantial and filling, but not all bread,” Thomas says. “It’s important to pick things that promote focus and don’t make you sleepy.”

Kelly Bailey Newlon, chef and co-founder of Boulder-based meal service , agrees, adding that your priorities at lunch should be lots of protein for an energy boost and muscle repair, plus fiber to promote digestion and healthy blood-sugar levels.

For lunch ideas that check all those boxes, Thomas and Newlon both suggest a filling twist on the humble salad. You can prep both in advance, and the recipes make large portions, perfect for trying different combos throughout the week.

Warm Curry Roasted Root Vegetable Salad

Rather than just a mound of greens, Thomas says we should start to think of a salad as a hearty pile of roasted vegetables and protein. He tops that with spices and seasonings, rather than a heavy dressing.

Thomas’ go-to lunch recipe is hearty, relatively inexpensive, and versatile. “You can recreate it a million ways,” he says.

Greens

Start with your choice of mixed and/or bitter greens.

Roasted Vegetables

On top of your greens, add any number of roasted vegetables. Anything goes, but Thomas’ favorite medley includes:

• 2 pounds carrots, washed and cut into 3-inch strips
• 1/2 red onion, cut into thick strips
• 6 to 10 garlic cloves, smashed
• 1 medium sweet potato, cubed
• 3 to 4 jalapeños, cut into thick chunks
• 1 small bunch parsley, coarsely chopped

Protein

Pile up your favorite protein. Roasted chicken, smoked turkey, grilled tofu, canned beans, tuna, chopped eggs, or carnitas are all great options.

Seasonings

• Olive oil
• 1 tablespoon of your favorite seasonings (Thomas recommends .)
• Salt and pepper
• 1/2 fresh lemon

Asian-Inspired Grain Bowl

Newlon uses whole grains in her salads for some added fiber and protein to keep her full throughout the afternoon. She also loves toppers that add crunch—some of her favorites are raw vegetables and crisp fruits. She finishes it off with a nut-butter-based dressing.

Grain

1 cup cooked quinoa, rice, noodles, or other grain of your choice

Toppings

• 1 apple, sliced with peel on
• 1 avocado, chopped
• 1/4 cucumber, chopped
• 4 to 5 leaves each of fresh basil, cilantro, and mint, chopped

Protein

Pick your protein. Newlon suggests tofu, shredded chicken, or shrimp. Opt for six to eight ounces of whatever you choose. The serving should be about the size of your fist.

Dressing

Combine everything below and add to your lunch as needed.

• 1 tablespoon honey or maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon peanut butter
• 1 tablespoon tamari
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh minced ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

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For many runners, stomach pain is a nagging constant, and the culprit is often food. “Runners with GI distress don’t necessarily have weak stomachs. They’re just eating the wrong things in the wrong amounts and at the wrong times,” says Tara Dellolacono, an ultrarunner, registered dietitian, and nutritional strategist for Clif Bar.

Here’s the deal: Carbs are the body’s best fuel source while exercising. For most, sticking to simple carbs—the kind that are easy to digest and found in things like gels, goos, and candy—is the best way to avoid an upset stomach. But even when following that rule, your body can only absorb between 30 to 60 grams of the stuff per hour. “For newer folks, [the cause of their GI pain] is usually consuming too much at one time,” says Dellolacono. “They will start out empty and then slam a bunch of gels all at once to make up for it.”

The bottom line: Treating a weak stomach is a mix of picking the right foods and the right times to eat them. We’ve listed eight good things to eat, along with tips on how and when to eat them.

Foods to Soothe Your Stomach

Gels

Weird colors, bizarre textures, and questionable tastes aside, gels are still your best bet when it comes to setting up your stomach for success. They’re easy to swallow, easy to digest, and used for energy almost immediately.

Don’t confuse the fact that gels can taste bad (and that therefore you don’t crave them) with their propensity to sabotage your stomach. “Cravings are tough,” says Matt Fitzgerald, nutritionist, coach, and author of . “Cravings have been found to be very crude. Really, you just want calories and carbohydrates.” Gels have been engineered to give the exercising body exactly that, with the least amount of resistance from the digestive system. The idea of eating a gel may make you want to gag, but the reality is that it’s your surest ticket to a pain-free stomach.

Just don’t consume more than three gels in an hour, or more than 60 grams of carbohydrates. Doing so will overload your system, which is often what gets runners into trouble.

Electrolyte Drinks

If you’re constantly battling a knotty stomach, it might be best to consume primarily liquids while running. Electrolyte mixes like , , and have been specifically designed to fuel the body in motion in the most digestible form imaginable: liquid. “I’ve raced entire Ironmans on liquids,” says Fitzgerald, adding that in more than 30 years of racing, he’s never chewed while running.

Of course, hitting all of your nutritional requirements via electrolyte mix alone necessitates guzzling a lot of liquid. While Fitzgerald has found success with this method, he says most athletes will benefit from supplementing with gels. “I usually get all of my fluid needs from a carbohydrate drink, and then I make up the carbohydrate difference with gels.”

Chews

Performance gummies like or are loaded with the same perfectly calibrated ingredients as gels, just in a smaller, denser form. This is a good thing, says Dellolacono, because while a whole package has more calories than a gel, you can simply break the chews off one at a time and dole out fuel as needed. “You can add them seven grams [of carbohydrates] at a time over the course of your training, and test it out on yourself and see how high you can get without an upset stomach,” she says.

Banana

Bananas are a classic performance food for good reason. Most fruit is high in fructose, which in concentrated doses can upset the stomach. But bananas have only a moderate amount of the sugar, making them ideal for in-race fuel. However, they still have a decently high fiber content, which can throw a wrench into the digestive processes. One banana before a race or a bite or two at an aid station will likely be just fine.

Salted Potatoes

This may strike you as counterintuitive: Potatoes are bulky, rich, and filling. In other words, the last thing you want while exercising. But in moderate doses—perhaps just a few bites or half a spud—and without the fatty toppings we usually associate with potatoes (butter, sour cream, bacon), boiled potatoes with the skin off and a bit of salt for electrolyte balance is the type of simple carbohydrate that will sit lightly in the stomach and be absorbed quickly.

Sweet Potatoes

When boiled or roasted, sweet potatoes have a creamy texture that make them easy to put down. But the reason sweet potatoes will play nicely with your stomach is simple: It’s a fast-digesting carbohydrate. Potatoes, both regular and sweet, do contain fiber, but a lot of that is in the skin. If you’re eating one during or just before a race, make sure to peel your potatoes first.

Pretzels

While definitely not as easy to eat as a boiled potato or gel, hard-baked snack pretzels are still a great option for those with a weak stomach. They’re a refined carbohydrate stripped of fiber and vitamins. That may strike you as a bad thing—“refined carbs” is practically a dirty phrase in the world of nutrition—but Fitzgerald is quick to point out that “a lot of people are fundamentally confused about the purpose of food in race nutrition. It’s not for your overall health—it’s to get you to the finish line.”

Chips

While you certainly don’t want to eat a lot of chips—they’re deep-fried, upping their fat content—they have a pleasant, starchy crunch with salt to stabilize your electrolyte balance. But Dellolacono says the primary benefit of something like a chip is simply giving the palate a break from the sugary, simple carbohydrates like gels. It’s not the best thing for the exercising body, but having something like a small chip will break up the monotony of sticky-sweet tastes and allow you to keep eating the stomach-friendly fuel afterward.

Training to Bolster Your Stomach

If you have a weak stomach, there’s good news: Both Fitzgerald and Dellolacono contend that just as you can train the body to run faster and longer, you can train the stomach to comfortably handle more food.

The best way to adapt the body to run with food is to train with a full stomach. There are a few ways to accomplish this: Drink a lot of fluid right before or during a run to make the stomach comfortable with increased volume, go on an easy run immediately after a meal, or simply practice eating while running. (Just like with training for distance, though, you want to slowly build up over time). You’ll never be able to increase how quickly you can absorb carbs—that remains constant, at about 30 to 60 grams per hour—but you can condition your body to be more comfortable with feeling full.

Dellolacono also points out that emerging evidence shows that the microbiome is sensitive to the foods you take in on daily basis. So if your daily diet consists of a lot of carbohydrates, your stomach will be better adept and digesting them while running. This also speaks to a point that Dellolacono maintains is the most important factor in developing a strong, resilient stomach: “It all comes back to a a foundationally fit diet,” she says. “Something I’ve learned while working with Clif athletes over time is that even though they eat whatever they want some of the time, I know they start with a foundationally fit diet that is really good for everybody. And then knowing they have that healthy gut to start with, they can train their guts to do more during activity.”

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Twenty years ago, performance nutrition meant water and a banana. Today, it more closely resembles a science experiment, with neon-colored gels, powders, gummies, and an endless stream of protein and energy bars. That leaves many people (including us) overwhelmed and confused, so we set out to determine what to eat and when to eat it.

“The two most important factors to think about with these foods are the glycemic load and absorbability,” says Megan Forbes, a registered dietitian and founder of . That means you need to consider a food’s nutritional profile—what’s in it and how long the energy it contains will last—and how quickly your body can digest and then use that energy.

There’s a guiding principle to sports nutrition: Easily digestible carbs are best for short, fast efforts, while more complex foods higher in protein and fat are good for slow, all-day excursions. To help you sort out where today’s most popular performance foods fall, we created a matrix that ranks 19 of those items.

We looked at absorbability (ten means the food is easy to digest and quick to absorb; one indicates the food is tough to digest and slow to absorb) and nutritional quality (ten means it’s high in nutrients like simple carbs that make for excellent performance fuel during high-intensity efforts; one means it has higher fat, protein, or fiber content that makes it less ideal for high-intensity efforts). A disclaimer: Since this is a ranking based on performance foods, we’re not saying lower-ranked foods are generally worse for your health; they’re just not helpful for all-out training efforts.

Best for Immediate Energy

Drink Mixes

In the not too distant past, your only hydration options were water or the sugar gut-bomb that is Gatorade. But the market has exploded in recent years, with manufacturers like , , and tailoring their powders for ideal endurance hydration. Many of these mixes are packed with carbohydrates, sugar, and some salts, giving athletes the essential electrolytes and calories they need rather than just an overdose of sugar. And with a really high absorbability, they’re in and out of your system in the blink of an eye, perfect during intense efforts. “I think many people have the misconception that they want complex foods during activity. That’s backwards,” says Steph Violett, a champion ultrarunner with a PhD in nutrition. “That is the time you actually want the most simple sugar you can get. It will go directly to the working muscles to be used for energy.”

Gels

Gels have everything the body needs when your heart rate is skyrocketing and your body is blowing through energy—simple sugars, sodium, and electrolytes. They’re endurance-athlete rocket fuel, providing an almost instant boost. By that same token, they’re used up almost just as quickly. So, during prolonged intense efforts, it’s key to eat gels early and often to prevent emptying your energy reserves.

Performance Chews

With a few more calories per package and a slightly slower absorption rate, think of performance chews—like or —as an incrementally longer-lasting gel. They too are typically packed with sugar, potassium, and sodium, but they require just a little more time for the body to digest than a near-liquid gel.

Rice Balls

Homemade performance foods are having a moment. Specifically, rice-based, bite-sized homemade energy balls filled with ingredients ranging from eggs and ginger to dates and chocolate chips. With its moderately high glycemic index, rice helps athletes refuel similarly to straight sugar—quickly and easily—says Forbes. Although energy balls can vary widely in terms of their specific makeup—a quick Google search reveals thousands of recipes—it’s still hard to hit all the same nutritional markers with something you whip up in your kitchen as you can with a perfectly calibrated lab-designed chew or gel. That means these are ideal during long, moderate efforts, like an ultramarathon or a big bike ride, when you’re craving real food but are working too hard to stomach anything especially high in fiber, fat, or protein.

Soda

With heaps of sugar and usually caffeine, soda has become a surprising and counterintuitive performance food for ultramarathoners. Coke and Sprite are among the most popular items at any aid station, and many people swear by them as the miles start to add up. But be warned: Relying on the carbonated goodness for too long will leave you short on key electrolytes and sodium.

Best for Somewhere in Between

Candy

Sour and gummy candies are easily absorbed and loaded with sugar energy. But without much else in terms of vital nutrition—like the sodium or electrolytes often included in gels or drink mixes—you run the risk of bonking pretty quickly if this is your sole source of fuel. If nothing else, Violett says the best thing about candy is that it breaks up the performance-food monotony. “Sometimes it sounds way more appealing to eat Swedish Fish than a sleeve of blocks.”

Real Fruit

While real fruit has a lower glycemic index than dried fruit, meaning it will provide less immediate energy in the form of carbohydrates, it is often a lot more complex and rich in terms of nutrients. Plus, more water content means a bonus of hydration. But Violett warns that fruit is high in fructose and fiber, which can sit in the gut and cause distress. So while fruit is relatively easily absorbed and will give you immediate energy, it’s best to save it for moderate to slow efforts.

Bone Broth

During a cold, long mountain race, there is almost nothing more satisfying than a cup of broth. There’s a reason it’s spooned out at nearly every ultramarathon aid station: Broth provides hydration and replenishes lost salts. But Forbes warns that broth has little in the way of calories and, if not taken with other foods, may mess up an athlete’s salt balance.

Best for the Long Haul

Potatoes

Potatoes are a deceptively great performance food. They’re high in potassium, which can help balance your electrolyte needs, as well as tons of minerals, vitamins, and more than 30 grams of carbs, says Forbes. Ultrarunner Nickademus Hollon, who finished the notorious Barkley Marathons at age 22, told şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř in June that he runs with salty mashed potatoes in a plastic bag, squeezing globs out as needed.

Stroopwafel

The Dutch have been eating the stroopwafel—two thin layers of baked dough sandwiched around a sweet, syrupy interior—for more than 200 years. The concept has recently been co-opted by sports nutrition companies like , , and , which have created their own performance-oriented waffles. They tend to have the same sugar and carbohydrate content, with added sodium and amino acids to help repair damaged muscles. The catch, though, is that many of these stroopwafels contain fat, making them hard to digest at high intensities. These waffles are best to eat before activity or early on during longer efforts.

Cheese

Among European athletes, cheese is almost more popular than gels. This makes sense: A lot of European races are in or near the Alps, with inclines and grades far steeper than pretty much anything you’d find in the United States. As such, racers are often hiking and moving slowly. For this type of movement, cheese, which is usually quite hard to digest, is the perfect fuel. “It’s got a little bit of fat, a bit of protein, a tiny bit of carbohydrate. And it’s got salt,” says Forbes.

Violett agrees. “I think it works at UTMB and other European races because there is so much less intense running involved,” she says. “But in the U.S., I ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t think of a race where I’d use cheese.”

PB&J

For years, the good ol’ peanut butter and jelly sandwich has been the secret weapon for just about everyone. The combination of fat from the nut butter, sugar from the jelly, and carbohydrates from the bread make this centuries-old sandwich a virtual do-everything performance food. The only downside, according to both Forbes and Violett, is that the sandwich is fairly hard to digest given the fat content of the peanut butter and the bit of protein that comes in baked bread. It’s perfect for the long, sustained hike, or as prerace fuel before an intense effort.

Energy Bars

The energy bar is perhaps the most old-school performance food, albeit not necessarily the most effective one. Whether that’s , , , or , these grain-, oat-, or fruit-based bars have a good amount of carbohydrates and sugar for immediate energy, some fat and protein for longer-lasting fuel, and a bit of sodium and electrolytes to help replenish what the body loses in sweat. It’s for this same reason, though, that these types of bars are not ideal for the super high-intensity racer—there’s too much going on. Energy bars are optimal for the slow burn out on the trails or all-day ski.

“I think bars are wonderful for a pre-run snack or post-run,” says Violett. “But [during intense exercise] you don’t really want something that takes time to digest.” As this bar toes the line between slow-burning and quick-acting performance food more than almost any other item on this list, it’s important to know your body well before you make them a part of your race-day nutrition plan.

Protein Bars

It’s hard for the body to break down and utilize protein when the heart rate is high, which is why Forbes reserves protein bars—options like and , both of which have more than 20 grams of protein—for easier activities where the intensity is generally lower than it would be during a serious training effort or race. “[Protein bars] would be great while hiking or even skiing,” she says. “Even like in between weight-training sessions, or prior to weight training, your protein bars would be ideal.” Generally, though, it’s best to save these dense bars for recovery or as a light meal replacement.

Best for Pre- and Post-Race

Chips

Sure, there is something supremely satisfying about the salty crunch of a chip, especially while on the trail. But in terms of its viability a performance food, not so much. High fat content from the frying process makes chips difficult to absorb. And you’re not really getting a significant amount of any macronutrient from a normal serving of chips. Think of chips as a taste treat—fun to munch on and potentially helpful in settling an upset stomach, but far from ideal for sustained performance nutrition.

Meat Bars and Jerky

Jerky has been a staple trail food among hikers for years. Recently, with the rise in popularity of high-fat, low-carb diets, the meat snack market has exploded, with companies like Epic and Krave creating bars and jerkies from bison, turkey, chicken, and pork, to name a few. It’s generally best to save these for recovery, meal replacement, or very long, easy hikes, when your slow-moving body has the ability to break down and use the dense protein. Violett sums it up: “This is not a performance food.”

Baked Goods

The baked good—like a bagel, biscuit, scone, or tart—has been the go-to pre-run or ride fuel for centuries. And for good reason: Most pastries are tasty and packed with carbohydrates and sugar. You’ll probably want to reserve these treats for pre-training fuel, though, as the higher fat content in things like a scone and croissant makes it harder for your stomach to break down and put to work during exercise. Plus, without any significant amounts of sodium, electrolytes, or amino acids, baked goods won’t do much for the exercising body beside give it a quick rush of energy.

Chocolate

Chocolate has for some time been touted as a superfood—a deceptively healthy treat for the heart and brain, supplemented by studies showing that its high antioxidant count—epicatechin, in particular—helps blood flow and thus endurance performance. For the most part, this is true, but both Forbes and Violett warn against eating too much chocolate while you’re actually exercising. The high fat content and variability between different types of chocolate—not to mention the contents of different chocolate candy bars—make the treat a gamble to eat while the heart rate is high.

Dried Fruit

Sprinkled in nearly every type of trail mix and a staple among hikers, dried fruits like raisins, mango, apricots, and dates are loaded with natural sugars and will give anyone on the move a pick-me-up. However, since dried fruit so condensed, “it is tougher to absorb than real fruit and requires much more water to process,” says Violett. “Not super ideal during activity for that reason. Save the dried fruit for less active times, like backpacking or at rest.”

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Here at şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř, we’re strong advocates for investing in high-quality gear. Just a few key items can transform an average camping trip, allow you to explore new corners of the wilderness, and elevate your performance.

This same idea applies to the kitchen. Having the right appliances and culinary gear makes it that much easier to create a restorative recovery meal—a crucial part of your diet when training—and make the underwhelming energy bar or subpar recovery shake a thing of the past.

Here are a few tools that the pros—and those who are in charge of feeding them—keep around the kitchen to help fuel their adventures.

Kelly Bailey Newlon

Chef

Kelly Bailey Newlon began her career in the restaurant industry 30 years ago as a pastry chef. In 2014, she and her husband opened , a Boulder, Colorado–based food service company for endurance athletes, prompting her to entirely switch gears. “I would say 90 percent of the elites I work with now are gluten- and dairy-free,” Newlon says. “I went from chocolate as my main medium to kale.” These days, her most valuable kitchen tool is a turning slicer, colloquially known as a spiralizer. Newlon uses it to make vegetable noodles and to jazz up the experience of everyday salads. “It provides different textures and, visually, it keeps people excited about the food,” she says. “It just adds a little more rock and roll.”

Pro Tip: You don’t need to spend a lot. Newlon’s go-to is the $30 Müeller Spiral-Ultra. “They last forever, and you can throw them in the dishwasher,” she says.

Matt Frazier

Author and Podcaster

Matt Frazier spends a lot of time in the kitchen. As an ultramarathoner and author of , the North Carolina–based pro has several cooking tools that he deems crucial, but Frazier’s most valuable appliance is something you’ve likely never heard of: a tofu press. It’s a gadget specially designed to change the texture of tofu by eliminating excess water.

Pro Tip: “A lot of people say they don’t like tofu, but really it’s the texture they don’t like. A tofu press helps solve that problem by removing a lot of the moisture, so you can actually sear or bake tofu in a way that will make it crispy or chewy, instead of soft and spongy,” Frazier says. His favorite, the Gourmet Tofu Press from TofuXpress, goes for just $40, far cheaper than the weekly curry habit you currently use to avoid cooking tofu for yourself.

Allen Lim

Sports Physiologist, Cycling Coach, and Founder

When Allen Lim talks about his rice cooker, he borders on apostolic. “Without a doubt, my rice cooker is the most important kitchen tool that I own. It’s my secret weapon.” In fact, Lim says that the “rice cooker—the same one found in millions of homes across the world—has fundamentally changed pro cycling.” Although the simple device is now the single appliance that you can find on every Tour de France team bus, Lim initially got a lot of flack for bringing one along. “The more traditional staff on the pro circuit didn’t like that I was changing the basis of the meals we were serving athletes,” says Lim, adding that pros at the time were refueling with baguette sandwiches or energy bars.

Pro Tip: Buy a rice cooker that has a locking lid—they work the fastest and are the most consistent, especially at altitude. Besides that, keep it simple: “A single-button rice cooker is always preferable to the very complicated ones, which are cumbersome, prone to break, and take way too long to cook the rice,” Lim says. Try the Tiger JNP Cooker and Warmer for an affordable yet durable option.

Mark Healey

Big-Wave Surfer and Spearfisherman

Living in Hawaii, Mark Healey catches that there’s no way he’d be able to eat it all before it spoils. To ensure that no fish goes to waste, Healey figured out a way to keep the extra meat fresh for months: a vacuum sealer. “If you want to eat healthy, local food year-round, a vacuum sealer and a chest freezer are a must.”

Pro Tip: Don’t wait to seal the items you want to save. “If you prep your food correctly and vacuum-seal it right away, it will last over a year in the freezer and still taste good,” Healey says. FoodSaver created a starter kit perfect for beginners wading into vacuum-seal territory.

Leo Babauta

Author and Minimalist

Leo Babauta is a Davis, California–based author of five books and the popular blog . His career is built on simplicity. Babauta likes to maintain that ease in the kitchen as well, which explains his affection for his Vitamix blender. “It is indispensable,” he says. “Best gift my wife has ever given me, besides my kids.” After all, it’s about as simple as a kitchen tool gets—throw everything into one container, press a button, and you have yourself a meal.

Pro Tip: You can use a Vitamix every day to create soups (like butternut squash), bowls (açai is Babauta’s favorite), and smoothies (include things like green leafy veggies, soy milk, berries, banana, and almond butter). Babauta uses the Vitamix 5200, but there are many different options to choose from depending on your needs.

Jim Walmsley

Ultrarunner

“One of the things with being a professional runner is that I find if I don’t knock my run out in the beginning of the day, I really limit my food intake until I head out, because I’m afraid to have an upset stomach,” Jim Walmsley says. His solution: toast. Walmsley uses his toaster at least once a day, and it keeps him from falling into a calorie deficit, which is easy to do when you’re running more than 100 miles a week, as he is. “I find that toast is a really good snack you can eat through the day, because it’s light and it’s not necessarily going to weigh you down if you haven’t run yet.”

Pro Tip: Go for the KitchenAid Long Slot. It’s simple and practical with both warming and defrosting options. The toaster slots are larger than usual, so you can fit any cut of artisanal bread for a gourmet toast experience.

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Around 5 a.m. on Tuesday, October 17, French ultrarunner François D’Haene arrived at the northernmost point of the John Muir Trail just two days, 19 hours, and 26 minutes after departing from the trail’s southern terminus. In doing so, the 31-year-old set a new supported Fastest Known Time on the iconic trail that traverses eastern California’s Sierra Mountains. His effort shattered of three days, seven hours, and 36 minutes. 

D’Haene began on Saturday morning at the base of 14,505-foot Mount Whitney and continued north to Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley. In total, the trail climbs more than 47,000 vertical feet, and winds through extremely remote sections of Sequoia, Kings Canyon, and Yosemite National Parks. D’Haene was gifted with clear, cool fall conditions for all three days—a rarity given the height and exposure of the JMT that often results in extreme heat—and team of Salomon crew members who met him at various points along the trail with food, water, supplies, and a bed for temporary naps. 

The record-setting run comes just over a month and half after D’Haene won the prestigious and highly competitive Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc—a 103-mile race with over 30,000 feet of elevation gain—for the third time. Over the last five years, D’Haene has established himself as one of the world’s most dominant mountain runners. “He’s the best in the world at anything over 50 miles,” says , a North Face ultrarunner who had previously set the record in 2013. “I’m not surprised that he crushed it.”

The John Muir Trail tops the bucket list for many ambitious ultraunners due to the combination of its relatively manageable distance and challenging, high-alpine conditions. The trail has a rich history of notable FKT record-setters over the past 15 years, including elite runners Peter Bakwin, Hal Koerner, Brett Maune, and Wolfe. With D’Haene’s most recent dominance, it may be some time until we see a new name at the top of that list.

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Caffeine fuels expeditions far and wide, from ultra races and endurance cycling events to Mount Everest summits and months-long thru-hikes. It’s a performance enhancing, do-it-all supplement that requires you to break zero rules of competition.

“Caffeine is fascinating because it does so many things in the body,” says Louise Burke, head of sports nutrition at the  and coauthor of the 2011 book . It can increase alertness and power, improve brain function and reaction time, and make you a happier person. But, for athletes, the most important thing it does is mask fatigue. “It translates very well to sports performance,” she says.  “You’re able to continue to work at your optimal pace or keep doing what you were previously doing for longer before you get tired.”

While the traditional appreciation of caffeine comes from its role as a stimulant, Burke says caffeine acts in more subtle and complex ways as well. “It may change muscle contraction. It may have an effect on how efficiently you use your energy. In some people it may help to spare glycogen.”

With such a wide range of possible effects, it’s  important for you to find out what works best for you and your sport, Burke says. Otherwise, risk incorrect application and possible side effects like jitteriness or inability to focus. There are many different ways to get a jolt, and things like dose, source, and timing will significantly impact the way your body responds.  

We spoke with a few of today’s best endurance athletes to get a sample of the their tried and true caffeine routines.

Jim Walmsley

Ultrarunner

Jim Walmsley, one of the fastest and most dominant ultrarunners alive, reserves caffeine for when he needs it most—in the middle of a race. He gets it into his body in the most efficient way possible: a pill. His go-to is , which contain endurance-enhancing chemicals Citrulline Malate and Taurine in addition to caffeine. “Even though it’s called PreRace, I’ll take it in a race if I’m feeling a little tired or if the legs are feeling a little heavy,” he says. “I’ll typically take two at a time.”

°­°ů˛â˛őłŮ±ô±đĚý°Â°ůľ±˛µłółŮ

Photographer

Aussie photographer °­°ů˛â˛őłŮ±ô±đĚý°Â°ůľ±˛µłółŮ is in near constant motion,ĚýÂá±đłŮ˛ő±đłŮłŮľ±˛Ô˛µĚý´Ú°ů´ÇłľĚýĚýłŮ´ÇĚýĚýłŮ´ÇĚý. Shockingly, she does this all without the aid of coffee. “I barely have any caffeine in my diet at all,” she concedes. But her hot chocolate habit provides just enough caffeine to keep her going. “If I’m on a cold expedition, I'm constantly found with a hot chocolate in hand,” she says. “I got the nicknames Hot Choc Monster and Miss Double Hot Choc. 

Stephanie Violett

Ultrarunner

Right before a race, North Face ultrarunner Steph Violett indulges in a different kind of caffeine fix. “I will sometimes eat chocolate for a quick pick me up. My favorite is chocolate plus peanut butter,” she says. Adding the peanut butter provides a bit of sustenance in the form of protein and fat to her pre-race jolt. “I normally just alternate a handful of chocolate chips and spoonful of peanut butter right out of the jar.”

Mark Healey

Big wave surfer

Despite the adrenaline rush of chasing 60-foot waves, the Oahu-based waterman Mark Healey prefers a milder buzz in the morning. He turns to Yerba Mate, a tea consumed frequently in South America that contains roughly half the amount of caffeine as coffee. For years Healey has worked with the California-based company , which makes canned chilled yerba matte. “It’s my go to,” he says. “It gives me the caffeine boost without the crash or shakiness of coffee.”

Nick McNutt 

Big mountain skier

Whistler-based skier and climber starts most of his days before sunrise—better known in mountain towns as an alpine start. Fittingly, he also relies heavily on an , Developed by professional adventurer Matt Segal, Alpine Start gears its products specifically towards endurance and outdoors athletes, and guarantees that its cup of instant brew will taste nothing like the watered down, flavorless stuff you're used to drinking when you're camping or climbing. “It's my favorite,” says McNutt. “It tastes like real brewed coffee but there's no fuss—all you have to do is boil water.” 

Rory Bosio 

Ultrarunner

Rather than compete at the iconic ultra races this summer,  completed a 128-mile traverse of the French island of Corsica, which she later described as “unrelentingly brutal.” To survive 50 hours and 48,000 feet of climbing, she drank a homemade concoction of two-thirds Coke, one-third water, and two scoops of raspberry  per every liter of soda. “I don't drink soda in everyday life, but I discovered the magic of Coke years ago while racing in Europe where the only fluids at the aid station were that, water, and broth,” she says. “I found that it worked great and didn't upset my stomach the way some sports drinks do.” 

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