Ep 837: Redefining Durability w/ Dr. Ben Skutnik

Power Athlete Radio

Power Athlete

Fitness, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 614 Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Durability isn’t just toughness, it’s the often-overlooked fourth pillar of performance. Dr Ben Skutnik, Power Athlete Certified Coach and Nutrition Ninja, breaks down the outdated model most athletes follow and introduces a new framework for real-world strength, longevity, and resilience. Learn how to build a body that can handle the grind day in and day out, avoid breakdowns, and stay in the game for the long haul. Shownotes: https://bit.ly/PARep837 Are you new to training or returning to it after time away? Don’t bypass untapped potential, follow Bedrock and lay the foundation to build unparalleled strength, speed and power. START TODAY - https://powerathletehq.com/bedrock/ Check out what we do: Training - https://powerathletehq.com/training Nutrition - https://powerathletehq.com/nutrition Knowledge - https://academy.powerathletehq.com Click on the link to see the companies we use and support 👉 https://powerathletehq.com/partners/ Follow Ben on Insta https://www.instagram.com/benskutnik/ Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Power Athlete Radio, a podcast dedicated to empowering your performance every damn day.
0:08.4	Join former NFL Pro and Power Athlete founder John Wellborn as he dissects the greatest minds in strength, conditioning, and more.
0:17.0	So whether your goal is to be the hammer, destroy mediocrity, or simply move the dirt, you've come to the right place.
0:24.5	Now with the warm up done, let the gains begin.
0:29.6	Over time, we realize that that X factor is durability, right?
0:35.1	But this model revolutionized it because it showed us that these static values
0:39.6	do hold some weight, they just don't explain everything, right? Because we assume that these
0:45.5	status values stay the same across performance. We assume that that athlete is able to be at a
0:51.4	V-O-2 max at 65 at any point during that race. We assume that their lacquate threshold will always be at 85% during that race.
0:58.2	We assume that the running economy will not change with fatigue.
1:01.9	All of those assumptions, though, we know are wrong, but that model works on those assumptions.
1:08.2	So it's not a question of will they decline.
1:10.0	They will decline.
1:11.6	So the question actually is, is how much do they decline and can we change that? So the gap between these
1:16.2	predicted natural outcomes, that's durability. So how do we define durability? Well again from
1:22.9	that mounder paper, durability is the time of onset and the magnitude of deterioration in physiological
1:30.3	characteristics over time during prolonged exercise. So it's two things. It's the time
1:35.3	that it happens and it's the magnitude, so how much degradation. So we can think about this. Maybe
1:41.3	we've been on teams with folks.
1:45.0	One guy maybe 10 minutes into the match, right, in top of the rugby.
1:50.0	10 minutes to the match, they just seem like they're moving a little bit slower, but they
1:53.0	kind of maintain that for the remainder of the match.
	...

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