Original episode & show notes | Raw transcript
An analysis of the core concepts from the Empirical Cycling Podcast discussion between Kolie Moore and Matthew DeRosch.
This document provides a detailed breakdown of the key themes and concepts explored in the conversation between Empirical Cycling host Kolie Moore and coach/former MMA fighter Matthew DeRosch. Their discussion offers a masterclass in first-principles thinking, moving beyond sport-specific dogma to explore the universal underpinnings of athletic performance, recovery, and the intelligent application of science.
A primary catalyst for DeRosch’s transition from MMA to coaching was a sophisticated understanding of brain trauma that goes far beyond the typical definition of a concussion.
Grade 3 Concussion: This is the commonly understood “flatline” knockout, a severe and acute trauma.
Subconcussive Blows: DeRosch emphasizes that the more insidious danger lies in the accumulation of thousands of smaller, repeated impacts that don’t cause an immediate, obvious concussion. These blows create cumulative trauma that often doesn’t manifest in symptoms for 10-15 years.
The Fighter’s Dissonance: This long delay between the cause (repeated head trauma in training and fighting) and the effect (neurological decline) creates a cognitive dissonance that makes it difficult for active fighters to appreciate the long-term risk.
DeRosch argues that the current standard of care for concussions is insufficient because it focuses on superficial metrics.
Basic Level of Operation: Most clinics test for basic coordination, balance, and cognitive response times. An athlete is often cleared to return to play once they can perform a simple balance test or press numbers on a screen at a certain speed.
Deeper, Unmeasured Markers: This approach fails to assess more fundamental indicators of neurological health that are often lastingly impacted:
Gait: How an individual walks is a significant predictor of future neurological health.
Autonomic Function (Vagal Tone): The functioning of the autonomic nervous system, which controls involuntary processes like heart rate and digestion, is often disrupted post-concussion and rarely tested in standard protocols.
Incomplete Recovery: The consequence is that many athletes are cleared to return despite not being back to their neurological baseline, leading to compounded damage over time.
The practice of rapid, extreme weight cutting, particularly in MMA, is revealed to be not a strategic advantage but a physiologically devastating process built on misinformation.
The IV Fallacy: Athletes often believe that receiving an intravenous (IV) drip post-weigh-in fully rehydrates them. This is incorrect. While an IV can restore plasma volume, it does not quickly rehydrate the brain and other tissues. DeRosch states the brain can take several weeks to fully recover from a dramatic dehydration event.
Guaranteed Performance Decline: An athlete who cuts a significant amount of weight (e.g., 15-20 lbs in 24 hours) will not perform at their baseline level. The loss of plasma volume, cardiovascular strain, and cellular dehydration severely compromise performance in a metabolically demanding event.
Anecdotal Evidence: DeRosch provides a stark personal example: cutting 50 pounds in six weeks for a fight. He also recounts seeing fighters have seizures during weight cuts from dangerous, unscientific methods like adding alcohol to a hot bath to “dry out the skin.”
Chronic Disease: The repeated, acute stress on the organs has severe long-term consequences. The most notable is kidney damage, with many fighters unknowingly setting themselves up for Stage 1 Chronic Kidney Disease by their 40s. The short-term “advantage” is a direct trade-off for long-term health.
Both speakers advocate for a training philosophy rooted in questioning assumptions and starting from first principles, rather than simply copying the methods of elite athletes.
The central critique of much coaching dogma is its lack of depth.
The Vague Command: A coach might say, “Get a good jab.” But what does that mean on a neurological or muscular level? Without understanding the underlying components of the movement, the advice is not actionable or quantifiable.
The Mimicry Trap: Athletes often start from a “reverse order,” asking, “What is the best person doing?” and then copying those methods. This is a flawed approach because it ignores the individual context, genetics, and years of development that led to that elite athlete’s success.
A more effective methodology is to break a sport down into its fundamental requirements.
Vision and Perception: For many sports, especially dynamic, open-skill sports like hockey, MMA, or criterium racing, the most critical element is vision. Athletes like Wayne Gretzky or Demetrius Johnson dominated not because they were the most physically gifted, but because they could perceive and process the environment faster than their opponents. This is a trainable skill.
Physiology: Once the perceptual demands are understood, a base of physiological capacity can be built to support them.
Strategy: Finally, tactical and strategic layers are added on top of the perceptual and physiological foundation.
The conversation highlights the ultimate value of an athlete’s internal sense, or RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion), over a blind reliance on external data like power or heart rate.
Definition of Interoception: This is the scientific term for an athlete’s ability to sense their internal bodily state—to feel their heart rate, their breathing, their muscular fatigue, and their position in space.
Pacing as a Skill: A highly developed sense of interoception is what allows for expert pacing. The example given is of runners who can time a 20-meter sprint to a precise tenth of a second based purely on feel. This is about perfectly connecting perceived exertion to a specific power output.
Training Interoception: This is not just an innate talent; it can be trained. DeRosch suggests using gym exercises to build this connection:
While sleep and nutrition are the foundation, true mastery of recovery involves managing the body’s underlying stress state.
The Two States: The autonomic nervous system has two primary states:
Sympathetic (“Fight or Flight”): The state of high arousal, stress, and energy expenditure. This is necessary for training.
Parasympathetic (“Rest and Digest”): The state of calm, recovery, and energy restoration.
The Problem: Many athletes are chronically stuck in a sympathetic state due to a combination of high training loads and, more importantly, high life stress (work, family, etc.). This constant stress is like “training without turning a pedal” and severely impedes recovery.
“Working In”: This is the concept of actively cultivating a parasympathetic state to balance out the stress of training.
DeRosch describes his practice of finding moments of stillness and calm during his training sessions.
Example: After a heavy set of deadlifts, instead of blasting music and staying hyped, he would sit, tune into his body, and actively try to shift back toward a parasympathetic state.
Benefit: The ability to rapidly shift between high-arousal and low-arousal states allows an athlete to “steal” more recovery time. Over a workout, a week, or a year, these accumulated moments of recovery make a significant difference.
The discussion concludes with a nuanced take on how to use scientific research and technology without falling into common traps.
Advanced equipment (spirometry, thermal imaging, pressure mapping) is useful for two main reasons:
Increasing Athlete Buy-In: Objective data from a machine can help an athlete understand and accept a deficiency that a coach has identified, making them more receptive to the prescribed training.
Finding Shortcuts: Occasionally, technology can pinpoint a specific limiter (e.g., poor sensory feedback from the feet during running) that allows for a highly targeted and effective intervention.
Question Everything: It’s critical to look beyond the abstract and conclusion. Examine the study’s protocol, the characteristics of the participants (e.g., were they untrained?), and the raw data to draw your own conclusions.
Understand the Components: The best research breaks down global metrics. Instead of just saying “VO2 max went up,” it identifies why it went up (e.g., an increase in plasma volume vs. an increase in mitochondrial density). This understanding leads to better training interventions. For example, knowing that plasma volume is a key component of VO2 max leads one to explore heat training as a valid method for aerobic adaptation.
Context is King (The Window of Applicability): A scientific finding is not a universal truth. A training method may only be effective for a specific type of athlete at a specific point in their development under specific conditions. This is the “window of applicability,” and a coach’s job is to identify it.