Welcome to The Edge Newsletter
This is the first edition of our newsletter, where we share what we’re seeing inside the lab, explore applied sports nutrition, and keep a few myths and fads in check along the way.
Lab Insights 💡
Over the past few months, we’ve expanded several areas of the lab.
New testing capabilities - exogenous carbohydrate utilisation test.
New ways to work with us remotely - at-home blood testing.
New partnership with Liverpool John Moores University as a placement provider - MSc student, Luke Collopy, joins the team.
The philosophy remains unchanged:
Test. Analyse. Optimise.
Client Insights 💡
We recently worked with Cadence athlete Hercules Nicolaou, who came into the lab for VO₂ max and lactate threshold testing ahead of the Seville Marathon.
Based on his physiology, testing suggested a sustainable marathon pace between 2:54 and 2:45, depending on the percentage of his lactate turn point he could hold.
Herc finished in 2:47:46 💪
A strong example of how physiology can be used to anchor pacing strategy with precision.
Hercules Nicolaou
What We’re Seeing Right Now
With the London Marathon approaching, we’re seeing a high volume of endurance athletes coming through the lab.
A few patterns are consistent:
Many increase their running volume too quickly
Most runners are doing their easy runs too hard
Many are under-fuelling, particularly across longer training blocks
All of these factors limit performance and increase injury risk.
Small adjustments, whether through a personalised fuelling strategy or a clearer understanding of training zones, can have a significant impact over a full marathon build.
Hear from Dr Daniel Owens (PhD, SENr)
There has been a lot of hype about ketone monoesters in the past 12 months and we’re seeing many professional endurance athletes using ketones for several purported reasons:
Alternative fuel + signalling molecule → ketones (βHB) don’t just provide energy; they act as cellular signals that can influence recovery pathways.
Recovery amplification → taken post-exercise, they may enhance the adaptive response.
Fatigue resistance / training tolerance → some data suggests reduced overreaching and greater training load tolerance.
In a new paper published this week, researchers from Belgium examined 8 weeks of endurance training + post-exercise ketone monoester ingestion and showed:
~4% greater improvement in 30-min cycling time trial performance vs placebo
↑ VO₂peak (+12% vs +6%) → suggests improved peripheral O₂ use
↑ mitochondrial adaptations
No effect on cardiac adaptations → mechanism is muscular, not central
This is in contrast however, to research that we have published which showed no effect of ketone monoesters on post exercise adaptation markers in muscle. Perhaps ketone monoesters need to be taken regularly and for a prolonged period to see the benefits? The jury is still out.
The takeaway:
Ketones may enhance training adaptations, not act as a direct ergogenic aid (i.e. won’t benefit exercise performance when taken just prior to exercise).
Community Offer
As a thank you to our community, you can use the code EMAIL20 for 20% off our at-home blood testing.
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