Today's podcast is a very, very interesting one with Dr. Paulo Puccinelli, who has been researching

down in Brazil the factors that predict a successful triathlon.

Now, he's done two studies that we're going to talk about a lot.

Previous experience, aerobic capacity and body composition are the best predictors for Olympic distance

triathlon performance predictors in amateur triathlon and distribution of body fat is associated with

physical performance of male amateur triathlon athletes. He's also co-author with another one of his

colleagues in a study that I've been looking at for the last

several months that was titled impact of training volume and experience on amateur

ironman triathlon performance. So essentially what they are getting at is trying to figure out

exactly what are the factors that us triathletes need to have to end up having a successful race.

Is it training more? Spoiler alert, the answer is no. Is it having a super, super light body weight?

Well, the answer will probably surprise you. Is it racing a lot? Or is it being able to race

for a long period of time while being injury-free?

Well, in a lot of cases, the answer is pretty much what you'd think.

There are some surprises, but what is really interesting about these studies is that it's

really tweaking where the importance actually lies with what us endurance athletes think

is the most important thing to be focusing on during training.

So I wanted to get him on.

We are going to do another podcast with his colleague, Dr. Rafael at Sinus Ghali.

And in both of these podcasts, I think you're going to learn a lot

about exactly what you should be focusing on and what you don't need to stress about.

I think this is a really, really important podcast to listen to and an important line of work

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