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How to Swim 1,000 Miles: The Biology of Resilience & Recovery | Ross Edgley | Myprotein
Feb 2, 2026
1,000 MILES. 15,000 CALORIES A DAY. BARELY ANY SLEEP.
Before Ross Edgley enters the freezing waters of Iceland for his most ambitious expedition yet, he had to solve a biological puzzle: How do you keep a human body from shutting down under total exhaustion?
In this elite roundtable filmed before his challenge, Ross sat down with the world’s leading minds in sports science to finalise the blueprint for survival.
From the skeletal muscle secrets of Professor Luc van Loon to the elite athletic frameworks of Dr. Tom Brownlee and the physiological insights of Professor Craig Sale, this is the "War Room" discussion where theory meets the reality of the North Atlantic.
This isn't just a discussion about a swim; it’s a masterclass in human potential and the science of staying "unbreakable."
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0:00
So when I told you about me soiling myself in my wets suit, you just turned to me with a completely straight face, looked me dead in the eye and went, "Was
0:06
there blood in the wet suit?" Okay, so this is going to be the greatest round table of sports science
0:13
genius ever created. That is a bold statement, I know, but allow me to explain. So I've just swam 1,000 mi
0:19
around Iceland. It was a terrible idea. It took 114 days. But now back at my
0:24
protein, I wanted to catch up with the advisory board and basically just kind of unpack and process what went on. So
0:30
I'm going to allow them to introduce themselves individually, starting to my right. Thanks, Ross. Um, I'm Dr. Tom
0:38
Brownley, an associate professor in applied sport sciences from the University of Birmingham, and my area of
0:43
expertise is strength and conditioning. So I'm interested in Ross' training and recovery. Now to my left,
0:48
I'm Luke Fu. from Masters University in the Netherlands and I am a professor in physiology of exercise and nutrition and
0:56
I'm particularly interested in the interaction between nutrition and physical activity. I'm very interested in hearing about your adventures.
1:03
I'm interested to know what you think about them. I just know these are so far outside of the realms of conventional sport science. I think it's going to be
1:10
fun. That's probably the reason why the three of us are actually sitting here. I love that. And then to my far left.
1:16
Thanks Ross. Uh so my name is Craig Sail. I am a professor of human physiology and nutrition at Manchester
1:22
Metropolitan University. Um I'm quite keen to sort of explore some of these concepts from from Ross' Epic Swim. U my
1:29
areas of expertise are largely around muscle and bone metabolism. Okay. So uh
1:35
getting straight into it. Um, I think one of the biggest things on the entire swim was challenging this idea of 120
1:41
gram of carbs every hour on the hour being the upper limit of what the human digestive system can digest but also
1:47
assimilate and and process and tolerate. In your experience, have you seen any athletes in ultra endurance or or any
1:54
other kind where they're exceeding that getting close to that? What's your experience with that? So I think one of
1:59
the first questions that we should be able or we should ask you is like what is it what is it like to swim around
2:06
Iceland? How many hours do you slim swim? How many hours do you rest? And how many hours are you actually drinking
2:13
and feeding in the water? Because that gives us some perspective on the nutrition that you should ingest during
2:19
such exercise. Yeah, it got it got so interesting because I think in theory it just looks like you swim for six hours
2:25
when the tide's with you and then you rest when it's against you and you just repeat that. So you're swimming for 12 hours a day in two six-hour intervals.
2:32
That's the theory. You know, we certainly set off thinking it was going to be that easy. Iceland just laughed at
2:38
me. Just said, "Hold my beer. Counterurrens, whirlpools, volcanoes, hurricanes, just threw everything at
2:44
us." So I think it was really interesting how we had to adapt quite a lot within that when we started doing
2:49
it. But certainly hitting that 120 grams of carbs every hour on the hour, it was
2:54
almost like for 114 days, it was almost this like perpetual state of carb loading. You know, even when I was
3:01
sleeping, if I woke up to go to the toilet in the middle of the night, you know, I would just see off an Enerel and a chocolate bar as well, just making
3:06
sure that you were replenishing muscle glycogen. And I I realize this is so far outside of the realms of conventional
3:12
sport when it's you know a marathon, an ultramarathon, iron man, but in your experience is anyone sort of I suppose
3:19
like aggressively carb loaded like I did through Iceland in your experience.
3:25
So there's there's different different aspects to carb loading. I mean you have carb ingestion during exercise and see
3:31
how much of that those carbs you can oxidize. And we now know I mean there used to be we believe that it was 60 to
3:37
70 gram an hour as a maximum amount that you could actually oxidize. Now that we know that your gastrointestinal tract is
3:44
actually the limiting factor, you can actually give more if you use different carbohydrates like glucose and fructose,
3:50
multiple transportable carbohydrates. So you can go up to I mean there's reports of up to 90 gram per hour but it's very
3:58
likely that some extreme athletes that have been trained to consuming a lot of carbohydrates can oxidize more and
4:04
that's one of the questions that are interesting for us is to see what you're actually doing because are you storing a
4:09
lot in your gut or are you actually oxidizing all of that during your swim because of course your uh adventure I
4:17
couldn't call it a specific sport because it doesn't exist is actually much more extensive than a six-h hour
4:23
trial. It's a two times six-hour trial within 24 hours over 114 days. So, do
4:30
you feel that your gut was actually not filling up over those 6 hours even
4:35
though you were ingesting a lot of carbs even in the swim? Yeah, I felt relatively okay. Yeah, like
4:42
whatever I was eating, I was assimilating. I was processing. I think that was what was surprising. obviously
4:47
just sitting on the sofa and trying to ingest that you know there's not that depletion of muscle glyco would just be sitting there but I think because of the
4:54
extreme demands it was just being processed in in my experience yeah I think the only thing I
5:01
can think closely related is speaking to friends of mine in the Royal Marines who will sort of mention something similar
5:07
where you are just force-feeding yourself but your body in that extreme hostile environment is just going okay
5:15
yeah we'll just try to deal with it as best we you know, it's not optimal, but it's what we have.
5:20
But over those 24 hours, so there's 12 hours of swimming, 12 hours of not
5:25
swimming, of which part of it is, I assume, sleeping as well. So, can you
5:30
give us some insights of how much of the food throughout the day is being ingested during the swimming? Yeah, I
5:38
would say as a percentage probably 40% during the swim and then afterwards um
5:45
meeting my other macronutrient needs. I think what was really interesting is when I was trying to make up my protein
5:51
requirements during the swim I think because of the cold weather that vaso constriction of the capillaries around
5:57
my arms. So the my body was going how where do you need the blood around your digestive system or your arms? You're giving us mixed signals here. And it was
6:04
a level of nausea that I've never felt before. It just played with my physiology. You and I was many times
6:11
just trying to outswim my own sick because if I ended up having a lamb, for instance, in Iceland is amazing. If you
6:18
ever tried the lamb there, it's amazing. We come into some of the harbors and they'll be like, "Ross, here you go. Here's a huge lamb dish." I would finish
6:23
the whole thing off. 2 hours later, we'd go for a swim. That lamb would just come straight back up again as well. So it
6:29
was knowing that that the the the food intake, it's not just the calories and the quantity, but the type of
6:35
macronutrient that I was eating as well was very much protein heavier went out of the water, but went in the water.
6:41
Exactly what you said, Luke, they are just carbs, simple carbs, whether it's fructose, so just making sure that they
6:47
were so much easily digestible. So you're using a lot of gels or or drinks or stuff like that.
6:53
Loads. Yeah. Yeah. I must have set a my protein record for gels. I must have done. And so what happened with the
6:59
digestion of the the lamb dish? I mean I assume you you you don't have the option of go to the toilet while swimming or do
7:06
we just have to assume that you just do that in the water? Well that that one the lamb dish in
7:12
question came out that end. Okay. Yeah. Whereas it was actually in Sigler Florida. If you've ever been to Iceland
7:18
Sigler in the north of Iceland amazing and it was the herring capital of the world. I didn't know that herring is a
7:23
laxative. So they made me this huge platter and welcomed me into Sigler. I ended up polishing off this entire
7:29
platter, then went for a swim and uh yeah,
7:35
it wasn't pleasant. It was it wasn't pleasant. But it's interesting to figure
7:40
out whether um basically what you lost through the other site whether that actually still had a lot of calories or
7:46
not. Oh, I assume that sampling was a little bit different difficult in that
7:52
condition. It was. I don't think anybody wanted that job either. I I was going to ask a question slightly
7:58
similar to Luke's there. Um, how effective do you think your fueling strategy was? I mean, it's quite difficult to know that, I suppose, but
8:05
you obviously had a pretty strict strategy. Do you think it was enough? Oh, that's such a good question for Tom
8:11
cuz cuz we had everything figured out like we had everything worked out under optimal conditions and and and me and
8:17
Craig have spoke about this as well before that, you know, this kind of optimal with all of the sports science,
8:22
you can rationalize it. There's all these studies to support it. When you're caught in an arctic storm with that
8:29
laxative ridden stomach because of too much herring and you're being seasick as well, that completely goes out the
8:36
window. And then I think you start looking at like palatability as well, which is so often overlooked. that that the things that I would want right now
8:43
going out for a swim are completely different that when I'm there seasick um overheating, underheating, whatever it
8:51
is, it just plays with your physiology but also your taste buds, your palatability as well.
8:56
So, did you hate the constant fueling? It was and I'm not saying because my
9:02
protein had got so many different formats, so many different flavors, I could mix it up just enough. But, um
9:08
there were times Yeah. where your body was just craving different things that you just didn't have on the boat. Yeah.
9:15
And I think that was probably one of the biggest surprises I think as well that that out there you think of taste and
9:22
you know adherance and palatability and all these things but that feels like it's so low down on the list of
9:28
performance when in reality it was it was like so valuable. I would have given anything for just a really nice tasting
9:36
um you know bowl of porridge or something. But thankfully most people don't have such extreme fueling regimes to consider that
9:42
specifically. But that is exactly it. Yeah. But equally as well because you guys all come from a sports background. Have you ever found
9:47
something like that? What's one of the weirdest things that's happened to your physiology or any athlete that you've trained like a malfunction? You you've
9:54
tasted you craved something different. Anything like that? That's a really good I mean you know it's very difficult for
9:59
us to say something like that because usually within a lab it's it's quite a controlled environment and so if something goes wrong like that you just
10:05
stop the test and you you know because that's then no optimal conditions for the research question that you're looking to try and get an answer to. So
10:12
you you kind of stop the test and you come back again and you do it until it it looks right. And I think that's one
10:17
of the fascinations with what you're doing particularly. I mean it's one of the fascinations with then doing research in in the field generally even
10:24
with sort of normal sporting endeavors let alone something that's sort of well left field like you've been doing there.
10:30
So, you know, I think I I guess that was one of the questions I was going to sort of ask you as well around, well, what do
10:37
you do? Because clearly there's going to be some days that go really well and it's going to go, yeah, okay, I've nailed that. It's is absolutely spot on.
10:44
My feeding strategy is exactly how we planned it. And I guess there's going to be, if not as many, maybe even more days
10:51
where that doesn't go anywhere near as according to plan. So, how do you then,
10:58
you know, go, okay, well, we're going to take this perfect laboratory environment, which all the research says, and we're going to stress test
11:03
that, and it doesn't really stand up to that stress test a lot of the time because it just it can't in a practical
11:09
environment. How did you deal with that sort of mentally or did you have people on the
11:15
boat that were were happy to adapt your strategy for you or did you decide that? How did you go about dealing with that
11:22
pro those problems? Great. That that is that's such a good question. I think um you we were speaking before I know you have a background working with military guys as
11:28
well. And I think um one of the biggest things this this quote always stuck with me. They said um friends of mine in
11:34
Royal Marines, they turned to me and said, "Ross uh you're an athlete, so you're used to performing at your best when you feel at your best. We're
11:40
Marines. We're used to performing at our best when we feel at our worst." And for me, that light bulb went off cuz exactly
11:46
the same that I was so used to uh perfect lab conditions, well-rested, wellfed. Why would I want to go and do a
11:52
V2 test when I've had 3 hours sleep? That's just you just wouldn't do it. That's a terrible idea. Um and so I
11:58
think time and time again Iceland became this laboratory to just test myself at
12:03
my absolute worst. You know, sleepdeprived, um carb depleted, seasick, hypothermic, all of those
12:10
things. Um, and I think it was shifting to go from thinking like an athlete, a
12:16
sport scientist, and thinking more like uh someone with a military background, like an adventurer. It was shifting who
12:23
I speak to. You know, speaking to guys in the military going, "What's the longest you've gone with sleep deprivation?" And I heard some like
12:30
horrendous stories. I was like, "Right, that's going to be of help." Not necessarily, you know, the sport
12:36
scientist and and the athlete who's wellfed, well rested. So, that's another really great point. So, so another question I would have is
12:42
you know from your own perspective how much of it you how much of that challenge do you feel was physical or
12:48
physiological and how much you think was mental or psychological because you know you've got that you've often got that
12:54
debate as to whether limits the performance of physiological I mean in invariably it's not one or the other
13:00
it's a combination of all factors but for you how much did you feel okay this challenge is down to me physically
13:06
physiologically and how much of that is down to me mentally or psychologically Yeah, you're so right. It's such a a
13:13
blend of of psychology and physiology. I mean, we we were speaking earlier about Tim Oaks and the central governor theory
13:19
or psychobiological model of fatigue. This idea that you're so much more powerful than your own mind allows you to believe. If we were all running a
13:25
marathon right now, you know, we' get to 18 miles and we just, oh god, my legs are hurting. My lungs are on fire. Like,
13:31
this is a terrible idea. You I want to give up. And and that is just that idea of the brain being a hypochondric
13:37
lifting that sort of pulling the handbrake going, "Oh, stop before you go to complete exhaustion. You're going to hurt yourself." But in reality, you've
13:44
got so much more. I know the the Navy Seals call it the 40% rule, but it's this they're all talking about the same
13:50
thing. And I think for me it was just knowing that with uh the cold exposure,
13:56
uh sleep deprivation, just knowing that you can push it far more beyond what
14:02
your brain's actually telling you. Yes. But but I mean the physiology still counts, of course. I mean, uh, if you I
14:09
mean, we're we're pretty excited to hear about your stories because we train people or we assess people on
14:16
digestibility and food processing for maybe 8 hours or short intervention of
14:21
10 days or maybe 3 months of training, but never in the extreme setting of 114
14:26
days or 12 hours of extreme exercise a day. And so you can say anything about
14:32
mental state and whatever and you need it and and you were successful otherwise you would have drowned and you're still here and you succeeded
14:39
but the fact that you actually managed to keep reasonably in an energy balance obviously for 114 days is exceptional.
14:47
So my main question is to see whether you were successful you were already successful is how much weight did you
14:53
lose over those 114 days? Oh yeah good question. It was strange because um weight I lost a little bit
15:00
but not as much. I think I started about 98 kilos. I think I finished about 94 so
15:06
4 kilos but it was actually the distribution of that weight and I wish we'd have had this conversation before
15:11
as well and I could have consulted your genius on it because it was a complete change in body composition and and this
15:16
is so subjective. This is just my opinion. I'd have loved some objective data on it. Um, but I just ended up just
15:23
being like, you know, 90% triceps and lats. Like my legs just shriveled. There was like that sheer atrophy. Um, and
15:30
then also as well, not only just like trying to maintain that energy balance, but it was also just trying to maintain
15:36
body fat levels as well, cuz obviously body fat being insulating. So even when we were coming into a harbor and we
15:41
weren't swimming that day, I was just like aggressively attacking like buffets and and
15:47
but can you imagine how well you did on on that part? And obviously you must have a huge stamina for for for eating
15:56
because 4 kg of meat, you basically ate a minute or you extra ate four kilograms
16:03
of meat out of your own legs if I can translate it that way. But if you translate that into steaks like the
16:09
steak you had last night, that doesn't cover 114 days of extreme exercise.
16:15
So the fact that only those 4 kilogram of a negative energy balance, that's massive. That means you've actually
16:21
managed almost 114 days to consume that amount of food. That's exceptional. That's what
16:27
we find interesting because there's not a lot of people. I mean, I'm not sure whether it's a compliment or not. I took
16:33
his off. But I mean obviously I mean most people would have a huge issue in trying to
16:40
actually feed that and a lot of people have difficulty feeding especially while swimming but then you and of course it's
16:46
almost impossible to keep up your energy expenditure with feeding during swimming
16:51
but then actually those other 6 hours of which maybe you sleep 6 hours you have
16:56
actually managed to eat just massive amounts of food. Can you tell us something more about those six hours
17:01
besides the lamb and the uh the GI issues? Yeah, I mean one of the biggest things I I I felt that I really leaned into
17:09
healthy fats a lot more. So a lot of MCTs, but also just like you know just jars of of peanut butter, I would just
17:15
see them off like you know like you eat a yogurt, I would just like see one of those off just done like just like a
17:21
yogurt just as a snack. Not spreading it on anything but just seeing that off. So, so, so I mean this is an interesting
17:28
perspective of course because I mean when we do highintensity exercise we know that carbohydrates are the most
17:33
important substrate source but with your energy expenditure and the incapacity to
17:39
ingest so much foods the only way to ingest that those amount of calories is in the form of fat
17:44
because one gram of fat contains twice the amount of energy as one gram of carbohydrates.
17:50
So the question is are you oxidizing so many carbohydrates or has your body
17:56
under those extreme conditions called exercise actually adapted quite a lot towards more fat oxidation maybe
18:02
throughout those 140 days or already you as an athlete. I think it was fat oxidization as well.
18:09
The reason I say that because so much of it was aerobic zone 2. Rarely did I ever get glycolic. Rarely
18:16
was it interval you know high intensity. rarely if I was out sprinting a shipping
18:21
lane or there was a few times when we got caught in in whirlpools and they were like Ross you need to sprint it was
18:26
honestly 98% just that aerobic zone 2 just that but under those under those conditions
18:33
where you suddenly had to go to a higher exercise intensity did you feel
18:38
hypoglycemic or laded or anything like that? No, no. I think that was what was so good. That that almost that dual fuel
18:45
source that my body was going, "Okay, we'll use both. He needs both. Like, we're going to have to flip between the
18:51
two." I think that's what's been so interesting. This is this is very much a question for you guys, but do you find some of the best athletes talk a lot
18:58
about the tour to France guys are actually the best at using both? So, if there is talking about to France an
19:04
ascent and they need an injection of pace, their body's able to go carbs. I mean there's two things of course the
19:10
flexibility but also the capacity to to actually go from a low intensity to a high intensity. If I go from a low to a
19:16
high intensity that margin is much smaller than in your case. So so you also have to have the capacity
19:22
to switch between very low absolute intensity and very high absolute intensity. But yes I mean from a
19:27
metabolic perspective their flexibility is much greater. So that will be interesting to see what happens when you
19:33
switch from a more continuous slow pace towards trying to I don't know uh
19:40
go through a certain stream or something else where you suddenly have to swim much faster in order to
19:46
uh stay stay ahead of the shark or Yeah. Um also as well this uh I I do you
19:54
know I I feel that you know we are brothers we've got to know each other so much over these last few days. This is a safe place, right? I can I can bring up
20:00
anything. Yes, please. Think we already did.
20:05
So, there was Iceland was amazing. Before Iceland, we did it was a training swim of sorts, but it was also a world
20:10
record. We ended up breaking the record for the the world's longest river swim. It was it was 510 km um down the Yukon
20:17
um river. Amazing, brilliant swim. But I think that was so interesting because it was non-stop as well. And and and this
20:23
is about if I can bear my soul and be vulnerable for a moment. Um, when it's non-stop, uh, you can't get out, no one
20:30
can touch you, you can't touch them. Uh, as a result, you you can't go to the toilet. You know, you have to just do
20:38
what you can in the water. So, with all of that said, again, to this day, I'm still not sure if my bum hole is in the
20:44
wrong place or the zip was in the wrong place, but but two hours in, I ended up like zipping down the wets suit and
20:50
trying to go to the to I'm so sorry, Tom. I I tried to go to the toilet for whatever
20:57
reason. Again, I'm not sure if my body is slightly different to most other people's. It definitely is.
21:04
We've discovered that. But this it didn't work. It just did. What was meant to clear the wets suit
21:10
did not clear the wets suit. So the team like look around, Ross, are you okay? I'm like, not really. Like I'm in a bit
21:15
of a bad way. You know, we have 500 km to go at this point and I have just there is just everything inside my wets
21:23
suit. I have just soiled myself in my wets suit. I then just zipped it up cuz there was no other there was no other
21:29
choice and I just swam for what was almost 60 hours. But I think through that whole thing as well, it was just
21:37
knowing how well I was assimilating. So it was a good thing in that my digestive system was working so well. It was a really bad thing that it was just
21:42
accumulating in my wets suit and essentially baking for 60 hours. Um, any
21:48
stories like that that might make me feel better about myself, but you know about a good dig a bad digestive system,
21:55
any anything like that? Any weird stories on endurance and toilet habits?
22:00
There's there's nothing quite like that, Ros. But um no no but you do see obviously you know quite a lot of the
22:06
time and that's that's one of the things we always say to athletes is is is almost like train your nutritional
22:11
strategy because there's plenty of evidence of times where athletes have gotten that wrong. um you know whether
22:17
it may be on things like you know sodium bicarbonate supplementation or high amounts of carbohydrate or um MCTs or
22:24
whatever it may be where they've consumed these things you know either in a strategy that has been practiced or
22:30
hasn't been practiced and it and it hasn't gone according to plan and that causes significant GI issues and I think
22:36
that's why under those circumstances we always say look you need to practice these strategies because you might be
22:42
able to with supplementation get a very very very small additional benefit And to an elite athlete, that that might
22:48
be enough, but you can destroy performance by 100% if you get it wrong. Because if you're if you're feeling
22:54
sick, if you're not feeling well, if you're not feeling at your best, well, obviously that's going to have a far
23:00
bigger negative effect on performance than um you know, a small positive benefit you might get from a particular
23:06
feeding strategy or or supplement, for example. You might think that this is only for professional athletes, but also
23:12
for recreational athletes and people actually listening to this. A lot of people actually have issues or have
23:19
stories about getting GI issues during their competition, the marathon they want to run, the 20 miles that they want
23:25
to run and then they come for advice and then you actually start talking to them and then you ask them how often they
23:31
actually ingest for example carbohydrate drinks or gels during during their training sessions and then they said
23:36
like no I only do that during competition. You train everything. You buy the shoes, you buy the gear and
23:42
whatever and you don't train the nutrition. I mean, of course, your gut is also trainable. So, those things, I
23:49
mean, I'm not going to say that anybody can train what you're actually doing, uh, because basically it's training on
23:55
the job. Um, but yeah, a lot of people are are suffering from that. And in addition, there's just mistakes. I mean,
24:02
if you actually consume a lot of gels, for example, and you don't drink water, you actually get hyperosmatic diarrhea.
24:10
So, you get get you get lot of GI issues. I mean we worked also with free amino acids for example. We provided
24:17
people with a large amount of arginine. Still remember that study where we had five uh um endurance athletes and we had
24:26
four toilets and they all had diarrhea at the exactly the same time and just one couldn't find
24:33
a toilet. He just needed to have a wet suit. That was what he needed because what the arginine did it did actually it relaxes
24:40
the small muscul the g the the the musculature of the intestine. So the intestine relaxes and everything just
24:46
flows out. So I mean it's not only training, it's also the composition of your food and how you consume it and how
24:53
well are you trained in consuming the food. And the guys mentioned um like the golden rule of don't do anything on
24:59
competition that you haven't practiced. Even if it's a new pair of trainers, you see that I've got a marathon at the weekend. I bought a new pair of shoes.
25:04
is could be suicide. And they mentioned the training of the gut. Is that something that you've perhaps not done
25:10
for this because you've got such experience of these kind of events? Have you ever trained your gut for this kind of intake or are you just lucky or I I
25:17
think definitely there's an element of luck. Yeah. And and I I definitely I wanted to trial it but but we were in a
25:22
local lake and there was there was families around and so and I didn't want to trial the wets suit with kids and
25:29
around but the the the gels and everything were very well tested. just the the poo flap as I as I called it was
25:35
not very well tested. And so you you trained your trained taking on board that volume of food.
25:41
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And even as well like everything from just like throwing curve balls as well, whether it was just, you
25:47
know, donuts to see if your body is going to be able to assimilate and process that as well. That almost like um like nutritional adaptability,
25:54
flexibility, you know, that it just kind of goes, "Oh, okay. Yeah, we can deal with that as well." Uh, it was just the malfunctioning of the poo flap. That was
26:00
the the real There's There's the moral of the story. Next time you need to practice going to the toilet in your wets suit. That's
26:07
more important than the in is the out. Exactly. I mean, I've re They're both important. They're both important.
26:12
I have addressed the in, but I assume that I mean talking about also genetics and upbringing, nature,
26:18
nurture. I assume you never had a very sensitive gut. No. No. No. Yeah. As a kid, you could
26:25
probably eat everything in large amounts. Yeah. Oh, yeah. My mom's an amazing
26:30
cook, so it was just anything and everything. Yeah. No, it was pretty good. But also, we we spoke yesterday as
26:36
well. I loved this story. Can I ask you to tell it again? So, when we were talking and I um you're one of very few
26:41
people you guys that I can actually have this conversation with. And not only are you not disgusted, you come back with
26:46
valuable points. So, when I told you about me soiling myself in my wets suit, you just turned to me with a completely straight face, looked me dead in the eye
26:53
and went, "Was there blood in the wet suit?" And I was like, "What a weird uh I don't think there was. Why do you ask?
27:00
Could you can you tell that story?" I mean, we were discussing GI issues. And of course, we we know that there's also
27:07
GI issues with endurance athletes. And so we know with endurance athlet athletes or endurance exercise if you
27:14
perform endurance type exercise your blood goes to the muscles as as you were already saying. So you get a hypo
27:20
profusion less perusion of the gut. Now that can actually have a negative effect on the gut. It increases permeability
27:27
allows stuff to go in that you don't want to go in leave stuff out. So in other words, you can actually have GI
27:33
issues when you have hyper profusion of the gut. If you consume some food or you
27:39
have some drinks or whatever, you actually solve it because the blood goes back to your intestine and then it's
27:44
fine. But there's also extreme conditions like for example dog sled running where these dogs actually run
27:51
for hours pulling the slays and when you actually um we did it on one holiday
27:57
where we actually run we were on the sleigh of course and the dogs were running and a lot of the dogs were
28:02
actually losing some blood out of their their their bung holes and so that was
28:08
also likely uh an impact of hyperusion of the gut and some GI issue. intestinal
28:15
damage due to the continuous endurance type exercise. And that was the basis of why I was asking whether in these
28:21
extreme conditions whether you at some point were also losing some blood in your stool. That's amazing. And I for the record I
28:27
wasn't. So that means that I can push myself harder. If I'm not bleeding from the bum hole, I'm not trying hard
28:33
enough. Uh no, I won't say that. I I I think if there was only you would take it that way, Ross.
28:39
Now going back to a different thing that you were saying yesterday that the blood
28:45
uh losing the blood whether it's from from just friction of the wets suit was
28:50
attracting animals bears joy the sharks or whatever if you were actually losing
28:57
a lot of blood from your stool that would also induce some other dangers right I'm so glad we had this chat now
29:04
say building upon that one of the things that interests me is that you know you don't necessarily you necessarily done
29:10
the same types of event. It's all swimming, but it's not, you know. So, if we take for example a comparison between
29:16
the Yukon swim and the Iceland swim, one is continuous what and in warmer
29:23
conditions, I'm assuming, than the, you know, the not still, you know, long period of time, but you are getting in
29:29
and out of the water in Iceland and albeit extremely cold water. Um, whereas, you know, in the Yukon bit,
29:35
like I say, a bit warmer, but it's a continuous swim. You're not getting in and out of the water. As far as I understand it, nobody can touch you. No,
29:42
you can't touch a boat. You know, that's a actually when you think about that from a perspective of maybe
29:48
physiologically or psychologically or even from a a feeding strategy
29:54
perspective, they're they're actually quite different events in many respects. How did you sort of how did you feel
29:59
about that first of all? And was the preparation for that any different?
30:05
You're so right. you know because it was it was strange with Iceland because you try to habituate it you know that sort
30:11
of um you know swimming for 10 hours a day every single day uh you are having
30:16
sort of bifphasic sleep and you just want to make it that's your new normal and in reality you could probably keep
30:22
going you know your your body's not breaking down entirely I mean it's bad but it's not comparable to the Yukon the
30:29
Yukon the only way I'll describe it is um with a non-stop swim it's like looking down the barrel of a gun you
30:34
know it's going to go off and it's going to hurt. Uh, and it's just basically can you control the catabolic breakdown of
30:41
the body and before it's too late before you get the record. What I mean by that as well is um we had a hospital bed all
30:48
ready and waiting. There was an ambulance at the end and they just said, "Ross doesn't matter what happens if this is a
30:53
success or not, you're going to need it. You will be a ner." Yeah. And I was like, "Oh, okay." So it was that was
30:58
really strange to know that you are participating in a sporting event and
31:04
regardless of how well you do, you will be uh hooked up to machines um in a
31:10
hospital with people really really worried about your kidneys. You still think it's brilliantly stupid, but those stupid
31:16
I think that one's stupid. We were talking yesterday. I think the the weirdest thing as well is is
31:22
periodizing that in a cal you can't keep doing those. So it was really strange
31:28
how when looking at an athletes schedule for the entire year, looking at that macro cycle and there's that high kind
31:33
of like recovery mess cycle period peaking everything for me it's so important afterwards just to say okay
31:40
that was terrible you have abused your body now be really kind to it and I suppose this is this is more a question
31:46
I've been wanting to ask you guys knowing that you're going to do that to your body what would you recommend in
31:52
terms of like recovery strategies afterwards is it just like completely just making sure just like bed rest, is
31:57
there nutritional strategies you can do? Is there anything there or and equally further to that point is it uh adrenal
32:04
fatigue, central nervous system is that shot? What are you looking to repair after being so stupid?
32:10
So most of most of the recovery uh strategies are focused on in the past focused on the next 24 hours refueling.
32:19
So glycogen restoration in your liver and in your muscle that is going that was actually the the most important
32:25
thing longer term now they finally figured out I mean uh that recovery
32:32
after each training session is maybe even more important than recovery after a single event because the recovery
32:38
after each and every training session makes you the athlete get that can
32:44
really stupid uh swim around Iceland. So it's all of these factors together but
32:49
in under in such extreme conditions what is recovery from a nervous central
32:54
nervous muscle uh organs organ function I don't think anybody knows I mean this
33:00
basically resembles um acute trauma or surgery or um um hunger strikes or
33:10
anything like that an extreme change in metabolism balance between energy intake energy expenditure
33:17
We don't we hardly know anything about this and this is what makes it interesting. This is also why it's
33:22
interesting to see whether despite the swimming you have muscle loss in your legs not in your upper body. So let's
33:28
take a biopsy of the leg and in the shoulder see what the difference is. How does the body know which which which
33:34
muscle to support which muscle to consume? I mean these are all very interesting questions and for the yukon
33:40
that would be actually a very interesting question. I never thought about it. So, so it's yeah less akin to a ultra endurance
33:47
event and more like a hunger strike trauma something like that survival situation in many respects I
33:53
would say so yeah so extreme that we don't have we don't have obviously for for obviously reasons we don't have
33:59
typical data on which to you know to compare that to so and we do studies in groups
34:04
so we study a group with or without a certain intervention or two different patient groups or we compare and that
34:10
requires a number of patients or volunteers in in a study, not an NS1,
34:17
but how does it relate to other people? How can we learn from it? Because how many people in this world uh for their
34:23
work or for a situation have to do the stuff that you're doing? Who's the next one to to to swim around Iceland?
34:29
Nobody's going to do it even if they have sponsor like somebody's already done it. So, what did you do and how long did it
34:36
take to get back to normal? Well, it was so interesting because what you said um Dr. Tom who was uh looking after a very good friend of mine, ultra
34:43
endurance athlete as well. So, he knew and I remember afterwards I was just kind of I kind of had a hypothermia. This was really really strange. They
34:49
they later said because uh I didn't put any suntan lotion on cuz I just thought that the the wet suit would have some UV
34:55
protection. Apparently, it didn't when you're swimming for 60 hours. So, it was really strange how when they had me in they said you're kind of it's like
35:01
you've got hypothermia but but your skin's burnt. They said, "The only way can we describe it is like you are a a
35:08
frozen chicken in a freezer, but then we've taken a Bunson burner to your skin." And I was like, "Right, okay."
35:14
They were so excited. I this is amazing. We've never seen this. And I was like, "Thank you so much." Um, but equally, I
35:21
love what you said there about um liver uh and glycol replenishment because afterwards, they were force-feeding me
35:27
chocolate buttons as well, and I was like, "I'm really not that hungry. I'm good." They were like, "No, no, no. It's a necessity. I don't care if you're
35:33
hungry or not. So that was so interesting. And then equally, I think it was just the sleep that I had after
35:40
that was the deepest sleep and the longest sleep. It's like your body just knows. I was out for 12 hours, but that
35:48
deep like it just out. Um and surprisingly, you know, afterwards, I
35:54
think 3 days afterwards, I was doing a media tour in America. um you know, not feeling particularly chipper, but
36:01
certainly not bad either. Um and I think what was really weird about that is is
36:07
now understanding, and I'm not again, I'm definitely not advocating anybody goes and does this. However, I think the
36:14
human body is so much more robust. And I know we were talking about this, weren't we, that you think that your internal
36:19
organs are just there, they're set, but there's a huge level of regeneration. Is that is that right?
36:25
So I mean most of the work that that our lab does and also a few other labs in the world is looking at the rate of
36:32
breakdown of muscle and building up. So that's what we call turnover and the sceal muscle has a turnover rate of 1 to
36:38
2% per day. So assuming that all the proteins do the same thing in your muscle which of course is not the case
36:44
but on average you actually remodel your muscle completely in about 1 to two months. 1 to 2% per day means 50 to 100
36:51
days. So that means you can recondition to look like a bodybuilder, to look more
36:56
like a marathon runner. That's why you lose a lot of muscle when you stop eating and stop exercising when you're
37:02
immobilized. But that's only muscle. Uh all the other tissues also have turnover. All living tissues have
37:08
turnover. The brain, your liver, and if you look at the rates of turnover of
37:13
your these tissues, they're actually much much higher than muscle. And you don't realize it because they don't
37:18
typically change size. M I mean your brain is at least for most people should be around the same size
37:25
because your skull is not allowing them to grow. But your brain turns over the
37:30
brain. I mean we actually did these studies in in people with uh severe epilepsy when they got brain surgery. We
37:37
took brain brain tissue out and measured the turnover rate was actually uh three times as high as muscle. So basically if
37:44
all the proteins in your brain uh would act the same way, you would have a completely new brain in about 3 weeks.
37:51
How does that work? What and we know from from MRI studies that there is plasticity in the brain that if
37:57
you uh learn a lot of new things that there's visible changes in your brain, but also all the proteins constantly
38:04
remodel uh and regrow and and all those proteins are being exchanged. It's like the house is not changing, but the
38:11
bricks, the bathroom, the bathtub, the doors internally, everything is being changed continuously in order to make
38:18
the house efficient and healthy. And how all of those things work, it's very I mean, we hardly know anything because
38:24
it's easy to take muscle biopsies, but it's much more difficult to take, of course, organ biopsies or to look at
38:29
surgeries. That feels amazing. So, yes. So, so the same heart and lungs and everything weren't the same one that swam the Yukon
38:35
or Iceland. It's just been rejuvenated. That makes me feel good because I probably did a lot of damage.
38:41
That's That's why you don't have any injuries, do you? No, you have.
38:49
That's amazing. I I guess one one question I've sort of got still is,
38:54
you know, we talked about the sheer amount of food that you that you consumed and it it sounds like, you
38:59
know, you you really like your food and and you know, you said at the end there though that they were forcefeeding you
39:05
buttons. So, so to what extent, you know, are you, you know, again, there'll be those times
39:11
you're like, "Yeah, my appetite's fine. I'm happy to eat this. I'm really looking forward to eating this." And there'll be other times you're like,
39:17
"Uh, yeah, I I, you know, I I can't take another Subway roll wrapped in a pizza,
39:24
you know. Um, h how how did that sort of work? And how do you you know at that
39:30
point do you sort of give way to the to lack of appetite and not consume or because you know you you you need that
39:35
do you try and force feed how how does that work just in terms of how you feel about food and feel about eating? I
39:42
think I think one of the the the biggest things I did when I was um with a friend of ours, James Morton, when I was at Liverpool John Mo University, and they
39:48
were looking at uh whether my whether I had a genetic predisposition or whether I was trained to uh prefer uh
39:54
carbohydrates over fat, whether I was fat adapted or carb adapted. And um James was just like, "Oh my god, you are
40:00
so carb adapted ridiculously." I was like, "It's a good or a bad thing." And he said, "It's neither good nor bad. You
40:06
just need to understand that you Ross, it's almost like trying to do uh uh the lemon 24-hour race. Um you're the car,
40:14
but you're doing it on NOS, you know? So, it's like, and that's fine as long as you've got enough of it. You've got to eat every 15 minutes, and if you miss
40:20
a feeding window, you will be in a hole. And I was like, "Yeah, that makes a lot of sense." So, he was like, "So, what we
40:26
have to do is you have to just train to be a little bit more fat adapted." The first few sessions that I did fasted
40:32
were horrendous. just aerobic zone 2 just the idea of missing breakfast for
40:37
me was just like sporting suicide and I am just dribbling like on the side of
40:42
the swimming pool. It was I hate those sessions. I'd rather do high intensity just cough up a lung than a fasted
40:48
session. But for me, that helped so much in that just by training my body in
40:53
terms of fat adaptation that when I couldn't whether it was seasickness, uh whether the guys couldn't get to me on
40:59
the boat, uh whether we were on the Yukon and that wasn't a good time to stop because a brown bear was looking at
41:05
me, you know, whatever it was, just knowing that I was able to become a little bit more fat adapted um was one
41:12
of the biggest things that that I learned and I think made a huge difference. And I think anyone listening
41:18
as well, it's just they go, "Well, do I need to go to, you know, the lab at university?" It's like, "No." Like, you
41:24
know, if do you run really well on carbs? If I gave you a massive bowl of pasta right now, how would you feel? And
41:29
some people were like, "Oh, pumped up, ready to go, energized." And other people were like, "Oh god, I'd be just
41:35
want to go for a nap." I'm like, "Right, cool. That probably indicates something there." And I think that was the biggest
41:40
thing that trying to become more fat adapted. So if I didn't if I was unable
41:46
to eat or or I just didn't want to eat, my body was like it's okay. We got indogenous fat. But 114 days is something else than
41:53
doing some stuff in the lab. So um was there a nutritionist or a dietician
41:58
available who actually calculated everything you ate and how that changed micronutrient-wise over those 114 days?
42:06
I would love to say there was, but there wasn't. No. No. because you basically I mean this is this is interesting because
42:12
I mean I would assume that over 114 days you might become more adapted to fat
42:20
certainly on the conditions where it's it's more difficult to eat food and what is interesting what you were saying is
42:27
that you actually started feeling or thinking about specific foods
42:33
now I actually find that very interesting because what we see we we I mean for for research purposes we
42:39
sometimes do protein-free diets to see what happens and how turnover of the muscle changes. And the last time we did
42:46
a a protein-free diet or nearly protein-free diet for for a week, um the
42:51
volunteers were basically saying like, "Oh, we're dreaming of barbecue and I'm dreaming of going for fast food or
42:58
dreaming of hamburgers or I'm smelling barbecue while while I'm sleeping and stuff like that." So, they started
43:03
having a craving for food for for for meat. Well, there's also protein, a lot of other sources of course, but there
43:10
seems to be I'm not sure whether that's nature, nurture, epigenetics. Um, but you seem to associate a certain need of
43:16
the body in towards a certain food and you mentioned a few things. Do you have any recollection whether that changed
43:23
over those 114 days? 100%. It's so weird that you say that because we weren't allowed a lot of meat on the boat as
43:29
well just because that goes off. So it was a lot of like just stored dried foods and stuff and exactly that that as
43:34
soon as we got into a harbor if we were stormbbound for instance for just a few days we would have swam across the Arctic Circle um for instance over the
43:40
top of Iceland and then we got to Grimy Island which is an island in the Arctic Circle but we were I think 200 km away
43:47
from land. So that was the first land that we saw and as soon as we arrived I was just like please just give me all of
43:54
your bacon, all of your beef. like we just turn and and there was something in it that I was just like I don't know
44:00
what that is the intuition some am I mean as was I crave I don't
44:05
know but I was just like a homing pigeon for that it was it was really interesting and I think we lose that
44:12
like nutritional intuition sometimes that we've all talked about it over the last few days that absolutely research
44:19
educate yourself as much as possible but also don't turn off that nutritional uh
44:24
intuition as well if your body's craving something. Yeah. I wouldn't I wouldn't say that to everybody. I mean, if you would say that
44:30
to me, I'll be eating candies probably all day. So, telling me something.
44:35
That's why I look like this and not like that. But I assume under these extreme
44:40
conditions the signal that your body gives will be more clear uh and and and
44:45
and very evident coming up to your head and then it it translates into products 100%
44:50
even without the necessary knowledge that you could have on these products but it so yeah it's I mean it's a shame
44:57
that that that wasn't I mean basically you made a picture of everything that you were eating would have already given
45:03
us some insight or had that changed over 114 days. I mean I think the most exceptional is not six hours of of
45:09
swimming in under extreme conditions but the extent of which you kept doing that
45:15
I think that is the most interesting thing from a sport science perspective. So what we're saying is you need to do it again and then we need to we need to
45:22
take more measurements from you um as you're doing it. So yeah, if you if you just let us know when you're when you're
45:27
going again, we can you say that there's been talk the guys out in Canada, they were amazing and the other way around.
45:32
They are we we think we can go further in in the So they they've thrown that out and
45:38
honestly since chatting to you guys, I've picked I've taken notes over the last few days. So let's let's not rule that out. We'll just we'll see maybe.
45:45
So do you um do you have any ideas of what might be coming up next? Anything you can share with us or are you not sure at the moment?
45:50
Oh yeah, we got a few ideas. We got a few. Uh, but I think what's going to be so nice now is to have you guys in my
45:57
corner. So before I leave, I'm just going to be a lab rat and we can just test everything before I then go and do
46:03
something stupid. And historically, you've done some non-swiming events. Do you think moving
46:08
forwards it will be swimming only or? I I think so now. Yeah, I I I think um
46:13
I've got some amazing friends who are amazing in ocean rowing, in running, and they are pioneering our understanding of
46:20
human performance in those areas. There's nothing that I could do that could come remotely close to what they are amazing. But it just seems with this
46:27
idea of floating quite far and eating lots. You found your niche. That's my calling in life.
46:34
You know, we've talked a lot obviously from our perspective about research input into this. And I I was just quite
46:40
interested how you decided what sort of dietary approach you were going to take
46:46
or what supplements you were and weren't going to use or you know how how did you decide did did you use any of the you
46:53
know research your own research somebody else's research how did you how did you decide what you were and weren't going to do I I it's been a while now of just
47:01
like just triing I know we spoke about before just just making sure that everything is drilled and tested
47:07
beforehand and just know, especially the My Protein Enerels, like they just I can
47:13
have them all day every day. I could do an entire event on those with no gastrointestinal distress, anything at
47:18
all. So, the boat was absolutely loaded with those. It was like knowing that we had those and everything else was kind
47:25
of additional. So, we had it was just it was a lab on the water really, you know,
47:30
that we just made sure we flooded the boat with enough stuff and whatever Iceland threw at us, we had the
47:36
capability. And like I said, we weren't allowed meat on the boat, for instance, um cuz it just goes off. No perishable
47:41
goods. We tried to keep them to a minimum. Um so it was absolutely loaded with whey protein. Any crevice cupboard
47:48
had whey protein in there. And it was just making sure that we just um were prepared for every eventuality.
47:53
Basically, essentially, it's been sort of trial and error over the years. And you know what works for you now doing this kind of mad
47:59
stuff. Absolutely. Yeah. With a lot of intuition as well. And I think honestly speaking to you guys now, it would just
48:05
be amazing to actually document it objectively to to try to plot some more data. Ross, it is basically I mean I I can't
48:12
even imagine I mean that that this is not further thought out because it is
48:18
actually stupid. If you only miss one gel a day, you eat one gel less than you
48:24
need. That's under 114 days. That's 3 kilos. Wow.
48:29
One gel. One gel. 25 gram of carbs. Wow. If you miss one gel every day for 114
48:36
days, you actually lose another 3 kilos because in the end, you are what you eat, whether it's it's fuel or protein,
48:42
whatever. So, you stay in energy balance, you don't lose weight. You lose weight, you haven't been
48:47
stable. But if 114 days is a very long time, the fact that not somebody actually has an exact amount of your
48:54
energy expenditure in a day in the water in Iceland and matches that with food
49:02
and I is there really not somebody that actually told you like you need to eat more today or this week? I think the
49:08
truth is a lot of people never think these things are possible. So when when I put out the feelers and goes anybody want to get on board, everyone goes no
49:14
he's never going to do it. And then halfway round everyone goes, "We'd love to test." And I go, "Ah, okay. We're
49:19
kind of halfway round." The I mean, it's it's exceptional. I mean, even if you think I almost surprised that there's so little obese
49:25
people in the world. And then people look at me like, "You're stupid because there's a lot of obese people."
49:30
But if you imagine over 10 years how little extra you should eat in order to
49:36
become obese, that's only like a mini Mars a day. M now I don't really have any idea like
49:43
should I eat this mini Mars I mean but people are so good in staying
49:48
in energy balance and so most people can even obese people have actually only managed to have a
49:55
little bit too much every day that made them obese but under these extreme conditions you actually have an
50:02
energy expenditure which I would think would be like three to four times of a normal person a day at least
50:07
match it pretty much if I go to the tour France and I work with professional teams. Every
50:14
calorie is being recorded and power meters on the bike directly
50:19
give you ex exactly the amount of energy they expend. Resting energy expenditure is just a mere fluke on on the total
50:26
energy expenditure. So it doesn't even matter whether you measure that very well based on body mass. That's good.
50:32
Then you have your power meters. You know almost exactly how much. And then the food and the amount on the plate is
50:37
perfectly matched. And you do 114 days without
50:43
I never thought about that. Checking in that I can't believe that. I never thought about it like that. So
50:48
it's either I'm either incredibly intuitively skilled or really really lucky.
50:54
Yeah. And stupid and the third time. No, but but seriously, I mean, so so I
50:59
mean if you don't if you don't finish, you're probably that's probably going to be your last adventure because you don't
51:06
have sponsors anymore. Bad media attention. you disappoint people think like I'm not getting in and getting on a
51:11
boat with Ross if he doesn't finish anything so I'm not doing that a second time. But there's so much
51:16
dependency on that which doesn't seem to worry you and then
51:21
you don't have a dietary strategy that's almost oh yeah it was everything and but I I I
51:27
mean this is a whole other discussion but I am so lucky I think in that we afterwards we finished the Iceland swim
51:34
nutrition aside the weather that they said like you were so lucky this year they were like the Nordic gods were
51:40
looking out for you and I went oh yeah we did all right didn't they went no no no Ross you don't understand if you did this Last year there were seven days
51:47
when you could have swam in the summer. Seven. Like we were all stormbbound. All the fishermen, the sailors, they were
51:53
like, "Someone is looking out for you." And I think it's probably the same like the nutritional fairies have just gone. Yeah. But there are no nutritional
51:59
fairies. That's the whole point. And and and and the funny thing is if that if I if I go for I don't know 150k
52:08
ride, I don't feel hunger. I feel hunger when I sit behind a computer and I'm
52:13
stressed. But if I do excessive amount of of of exercise, I actually start
52:18
eating the day after or the day after. You don't have that luxury with 114
52:24
days. So there's I mean the fact that you can stuff yourself is
52:29
is is is I don't know whether it's it's it's a but the fact that you managed to do 114 days without major injuries uh on
52:37
on energy balance, it's really weird. and doesn't seem to I would not believe
52:43
it if I wouldn't have met you. I would have said as somebody actually calculating that every day.
52:48
So in conclusion, I'm either incredibly lucky or really skilled.
52:54
No, I wouldn't say skilled because you have no no clue. But there is somewhere a sensor in your
53:01
head or your body or in your liver that that can actually convert your extreme energy requirement
53:07
towards your energy intake. M and knows when to switch off and also
53:13
knows when not to switch off when you have not stuffed yourself under
53:18
conditions of 6 12 hours of swimming. It It doesn't make sense. This is awesome. Okay, so I'm either
53:24
incredibly lucky or I have an internal sensor that is able to maintain my energy equilibrium. However, my bum hole
53:32
is in the wrong place. Oh, in some way. And you're stupid. Let's
53:38
brilliantly stupid. This has been amazing. And you shave your feet.
53:45
Okay. Uh, this has been amazing. I've learned so much. I hope you have, too, as well. Uh, I just want to thank the
53:51
guys. Um, please leave comments below. Any questions, the team will try to get back to you. Uh, but like I said, this
53:57
has been amazing. Covered everything. Bum holes, bears, swimming. It's been brilliant. Like and subscribe. Catch you
54:02
guys later.
#Water Sports
#Swimming