What’s Next For The KoopCast? | KoopCast Episode 161

trail and ultra runners what is going on what's happening welcome to another episode of the KoopCast as always i'm your humble host coach Jason Koop happy new year to everybody out there i hope your calendars are filling up with events and races that you're stoked to train for and i wanted to use the turning over of the new year as a bit of an excuse to give you all an update as to where this podcast and where this platform is going to go in 2023 and beyond fret not i am not going anywhere this podcast is not going anywhere it's still going to be released on a weekly basis on thursdays despite the tardiness of this of this release but i am going to make some changes for the better of this podcast and hopefully changes that you the listeners will appreciate first off though before i get into that some gratitude this podcast is nothing without you the listeners i view it as a service to the community whereby we can get out actionable information and that you the public you the athletes you the people that are training for events you can take that information directly into your training in 2023 this podcast surpassed over 1 million downloads and it's only going to be several more months before we hit the 2 million download mark and this has all been accomplished

through you the listeners i repeat this time and time again and i'm going to say it a few times during the course of this monologue but this podcast has always been brought to you without sponsors or endorsements of any kind whatsoever that was a commitment i made from the very beginning and i'm going to continue to make that commitment that gives me the opportunity not to fixate on the downloads i mentioned earlier yet i'm continually humbled that the growth and the proliferation of this podcast is driven 100% organically through you the listeners i'm proud of that and i'm very grateful to this listenership for that and it gives me fuel to update and improve this podcast so what is coming up in 2023 first off is going to be a renewed commitment to scientific and coaching content the original tagline of this podcast if you don't remember and i do was ultra training banner banter and as cliche as that three bullet point bullet point punch list well actually was it was intended to encompass the variety of topics that i wanted to cover which included interviews with top athletes covering contemporary issues like iron man's takeover of certain races and even my own personal takes on happenings within the space and what i've learned is that quite frankly there are other podcasts and platforms that are simply better suited for these topics

for example my boy dylan bowman has a fantastic podcast called the free trail podcast and i'm sure all of you listeners are aware of it he is methodically turning that channel into a trail and ultra rutting media juggernaut he's an he's absolutely masterful at analyzing contemporary issues and interviewing today's top athletes drawing their stories out and making them relatable to a larger audience now i'm not saying that i'm never going to cover such topics like the transgender athlete debate or anti-doping both of which i've tackled before but i am going to lean this podcast in my areas of strength which is going for deep dives on science and coaching and how those topics apply to athletes now i realize that that content is not for everyone and it might cost me a few listeners and i'm totally okay with that some of this content is not sexy and it can be far from entertaining at times but i do think that it is unique in the marketplace and i am particularly well suited for it and is it a it is a value add for the audience so what you will see in 2023 first and foremost is a recommitment to those principles these shallow too long didn't read types of takes they are all the rage now you can get anywhere anywhere they're ubiquitous and i am quite frankly going to run in the opposite direction if other people are going short and shallow i am going to go deep i'm going to cover one topic at a time

with actual experts many of whom wrote the research we're discussing we're not going to merely monday morning quarterback some piece of research that we read on a weekend if you want the quick and dirty versions of these things with little substance go somewhere else there are plenty of those takes out there but if you want to learn why we do what we do and the intricacies and the nuance of what drives ultramarathon performance sit around bring a pencil and a pad of paper and get ready for the podcast coming up this year just as an as an example or just as a sample of what is coming up we are going to have deeper round tables with our coaching staff which is something that you the audience asked for and i'm happy to oblige that is going to kick off next week with a conversation with my boy adam polford who is the host of the train right podcast and a coach that i have a tremendous amount of respect for and that i've worked for worked with for a couple of decades now i'm also going to organize the content more logically for example i have this podcast bank that's probably just going to sit in the queue for the next three months that i recorded three weeks ago on how hot water immersion works for heat acclimation i could release that now but it's kind of dumb because it's the middle of winter and nobody's thinking about training for the heat so i'm going to release it closer to the summer when it makes more sense and i'm going to wrap relevant content around it so that you have the best information possible in

order to tackle that particular topic i'm also going to move to a slightly longer format which is going to require more time and effort for my guests and me and consequently add more cost the to the production of this podcast which is more and more every single month becoming my personal loss leader within my own coaching business enterprise and still i'm not going to i'm not going to directly monetize this podcast with endorsements or sponsorships and i know i have beaten that drum a lot but it is important to me i feel that as a coach it is my responsibility to provide counsel and advice and i do not want the integrity of that advice challenged or adulterated in any way by any company that could potentially alter or filter my point of view yet sadly you see this out in the space where professional coaches coaches and make no mistake if you are a professional coach your constituent should be to the athletes these professional coaches and the professional emphasis is intentional they're shilling out affiliate links and promo codes for products without any rhyme or reason other than earning the commission personally i think it's ugly it's unprofessional and most importantly it does a disservice to the people who should be the highest on that coach's pedestal their sole constituents the athletes but i i digress don't get me wrong this podcast is good for business my hope is that

providing actionable unbiased and unadulterated information by doing that i earn your trust and maybe just maybe you buy a book you consider coaching with myself or one of our coaches you purchase another product that we have available but at the very least and probably more most important you can take the information contained within this podcast to the bank as authentic okay that's what's coming up with the podcast next i'm going to plug a new product that's coming down the line something that i'm extremely excited to get out into the world this is a brand new subscription newsletter that will be coming out in february the title is research essentials and ultra running it will be debuting in just a few short weeks and i cannot tell you how how bullish i am on this concept and the reason i am so bullish is that it fills a gap in the content space that exists now that that that currently exists earlier in this monologue i bemoan the fact that much of the training related content out there is just flat out garbage it's largely superficial takes made by non-experts in fields that they really know nothing about and honestly i did not realize the extent of which this was happening because i've tuned out to a lot of that content to be honest with you i didn't realize the extent with which this was happening and still until i started researching for this monologue the titles alone tell the entire story they're meticulously contrived with the express outcome to

do nothing but attract eyeballs the titles say it all first off you have all of the iterations of the best this is the best workout for speed this is the best inner this is the best way to interval train why ladders are the best interval workout every single week something else is the best the next category of titles you have is the x takeaways from whatever the 10 best running related things of 2022 that was actually a title that i saw just a second ago how more how much more vague can you get nine takeaways from adam peterman's training eight takeaways from killian jornais training data seven quick hitter takeaways from the 2022 western states 100 five insights from training with the continuous glucom monitor i think we skipped six somehow four takeaways from elliott kipchoge three takeaways from killian jornais UTMB data two turtle doves and a partridge and a pear tree i could go on forever this whole thing is totally ridiculous what the fuck you guys out there you deserve better content if you picked up a supermarket tabloid or something it's the exact same style turn on your man with five easy steps without lifting a finger kim kardashian's three beauty tips for radiant skin i i i i have had my fair share of stinkers i've had my fair share of bad articles that i've

written and bad takes but not nearly to the level of egregiousness that is out there in the space right now let me make two things clear yes many of the titles i'm picking on have been pinned by david roche not all of them but most and let's face it they are pretty easy targets i have nothing personal against him or megan and if you like their content great however when you survey the landscape of content you can come to no other conclusion that it is largely superficial style with little substance and if we're being honest with each other it's starting to show you can look no further than the collapse of many of the long-standing media outlets which is exemplified by one in particular which was one of my favorites and that is outside magazine the demise of outside incorporated's in outside incorporated's ill-conceived collage of these mismatched media properties which include trail runner magazine outside magazine and actually the former publisher of the first edition of my book pocket outdoor media which was formerly known as velo press the collapse of those companies is a testament that end users crave specific endemic high value content the properties underneath this outside umbrella are bleeding and it's their own fault they foregoed editorial quality takes in high quality writing

for these pop sugar bubble gum fluffery nonsense and while that short-term solution to attract new eyeballs with this oh look at the shiny new object over here that can work for a short period of time but eventually and this is what's happening now the tide pulls back and the readership realizes that that there is little substance underneath this newsletter is a direct response to that it is going to be deep it is going to be thorough it's going to be scientifically rigorous and scrutinized by actual experts in the field okay so what is this all about every single month me and my editorial team we are going to review three or more scientific papers the reviews of those papers are in essence turned into a monthly newsletter the real power however in the content is how we pull all of this together it first starts with a core team which consists of stephanie howe PhD and nick pillar thd neither of whom should need an introduction i've done many podcasts with both of those we create a list of recent research and then curate that list down to the most intriguing topics the three of us then meet for a journal club and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the paper and the main takeaways that conversation is then recorded and turned into written content by the uber talented jim rutberg who was the co-author of both of my books as well as i'm going to brag and embarrass jim at the same time as well as a new york times best-selling author

he then takes the content and crafts it into something that is actual actually readable and then to add the perfect cherry on top the newsletter is beautifully illustrated so that the graphs and charts and associated content is appealing to the eye the format that we use to pull all of this together is really the secret sauce this journal club keeps everybody and their strengths the nerds get to evaluate the literature and give give it depth i can come away with the practical practical takeaways jim rutberg can then craft that dialogue into content so that anyone can understand and our illustrator ties it all together and makes it look wonderful to give you a little bit of an indication of the depth the of the depth that we are going to go to here's what you can expect the first edition will cover vitamin d supplementation and ultra marathon sleep and nutrition profiles of ultra runners and the effect of acute vitamin c and vitamin e intake on exercise induced muscle damage the second edition of the newsletter is going to review papers related to downhill running we're going to review the latest on how iron metabolism is affected by ultra running as well as the oft discussed how artificial sweeteners may may have an effect on acute kidney injuries each of these deep dives are going to be with actual experts with no fluff needed to get to the point this is something that every single one of our coaches will have and

something that i personally will gain a lot from and i would pay for that's kind of my litmus test would i actually pay for this and i after seeing how it's going to be pulled together my answer is yes so how do you gain access like i said earlier anticipate that this is launched sometime in february the reason i say potentially lost or potentially launched in february is because we're literally pulling together the first edition as i'm recording this monologue and as this podcast will come out i'm sure i will do some teaser promo on it at some point so just stay tuned all right that is the ramble for the first episode of the KoopCast for 2023 and that's all i got i do want to say again that i'm grateful for where this podcast has gone but i'm more excited and optimistic about the future i'm bullish on the focus and the depth that i'm going to double down on and i hope you appreciate that angle into the content that is it for today folks appreciate the heck out of each and every one of you and as always we'll see you out on the trails you