Wu Tsai Human Performance, Episode 1

The first of two episodes recorded with the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, on the territory where circadian biology meets athletic performance. The premise is that an athlete's body is not equally capable at every hour, and that training, fuelling and recovery are all scheduled processes whether or not anyone schedules them deliberately.

Dr Panda's group has been building the molecular groundwork for this. They have assembled an atlas of exercise response by tracking which genes, proteins and metabolites change across more than twenty organs after exercise, and by examining how training alters epigenetic marks in muscle cells. The picture is of a whole body response rather than a muscular one, and of a response whose magnitude depends on when the session happens.

The conversation covers what that means for the timing of training relative to the eating window and to sleep, and where the evidence is firm enough to act on. Relevant to coaches and sports scientists as much as to athletes.