Dr. Justin Marchegiani gets into an interesting discussion with Dr. Marc Bubbs about sports nutrition, exercises and diet of the Canadian Men's Basketball Team. Find out why it's essential to personalize or individualize people's diet and exercise according to Dr. Marc, author of the book, The Paleo Project.
Discover how to adjust protein, fats, and carbs in your diet when it comes to either improving performance or losing weight. Find out the answers to questions like: How is important is diet for performance and what is connection of diet to injury? Furthermore, learn about Omegawave devices and why these professional basketball players are using it in conjunction with a full hormonal panel and blood work.
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Info on Dr. Marc Bubbs ND: Dr. Marc Bubbs, ND is a Naturopathic Doctor, Strength Coach, Author, Speaker, and Blogger practicing in Toronto, Canada. He believes that diet, exercise, and lifestyle factors have the most profound impact on your overall health and performance. Marc is the author of The Paleo Project – A 21st Century Guide to Looking Leaner, Getting Stronger, & Living Longer and currently serves as the Sports Nutrition Lead for Canadian Men’s National Basketball Team.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey, there! This is Dr. Justin Marchegiani with Beyond Wellness Radio and I’m here today with Dr. Marc Bubbs. And Dr. Marc is actually the sports nutritionist for the Canadian Men’s Basketball Team. He is the author of the book, The Paleo Project, and he is really an expert in the field of sports nutrition and functional medicine. We’re really happy to have Marc on the show here today.
Hey, Marc, how are you doing?
Dr. Marc Bubbs: I’m doing great. Thanks, Justin. How are you?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’m doing great! Doing really good. So can you tell us a little bit more about your background? I mean, you’re Canadian National Men’s Basketball sports nutritionist. How did you get into that? How did that gig fall into your lap?
Dr. Marc Bubbs: Yeah, I mean, I grew up lots of sports. You know, baseball, basketball, the works, and then towards end of high school, got into some health problems, struggling with sick–constantly sick, losing weight, all these types of things, and the traditional medicine route really didn’t–didn’t fix anything for me and I was really struggling. And that’s when I–you know, a friend of ours said, “Well, why don’t you go see this doctor down in Toronto?” And he happened to be naturopath and at that time, this was kind of mid to late 90s and some fixes which were sort of Paleo, although Paleo at that time wasn’t really a title, but you know, taking out the dairy for me, taking out the glutens and some of these things really got me back on track, and that’s when it started to click a little bit this idea of kinda finding out the root causes of things and trying to build up the body to help with performance or just–just feeling better and looking better.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Got it. So how did the opportunity to because be the men’s sports nutritionist coach come along for you?
Dr. Marc Bubbs: Yeah, so then practicing at one of the clinics I was working at, the–our performance team lead, Sam Gibbs, was working there as well and you know, with my background as a strength coach with athletics and also with a–as a naturopath kinda blended all the things in that he was looking for in terms of all the guys on the–on this performance team, we were able to kinda dip their toes into other areas rather than just being, you know, sort of practicing in a silo or the strength coach was just doing his thing and the physio was doing his thing and the sports nutrition lead is doing their thing, you know, we got quite a dynamic team. We actually presented over at the Boston Sports Medicine, you know, performance conference a couple weekends back with our whole performance team.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, wow!
Dr. Marc Bubbs: So it has been a really–a really fun road.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s great. Really cool. And most naturopaths, you know, don’t really–I should say, don’t really get connected with the–the whole sports conditioning part. So did you already have that background before naturopathic school? How did you get that background?
Dr. Marc Bubbs: I did, yeah. Actually after university, I took some time off and ended up in London, England and got into the strength and conditioning side of things. And it was amazing how it just dovetail so well with trying to get people to feel better and look better and improve their health, you know, with just moving and exercise as being the hallmark of better blood flow, better blood pressure, better lipid panels, mood, et cetera. I mean, there’s sure no better way, so it’s amazing how that kinda fit in nicely and then on that performance side of things, just working more and more with athletes and then eventually, you know, connecting with Sam and the guys at Canada Basketball.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Got it and what kind of programs were you writing a lot of these athletes? Were they more like functional movements based, free weight like powerlifting base, CrossFit style, like machine-based? What were you doing with your movement patterns for your athletes?
Dr. Marc Bubbs: So for me when I was–I was working with the younger guys at Canada Basketball so it was really around, you know, movement, correcting movement imbalance, et cetera, because it was, you know, you get into–especially dealing with basketball players, you know, limb length and everything else, you’re getting into some–obviously some really tall guys and you know, basketball itself is played from, you know, quarter squat up so you get a lot of issues around ankle mobility.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Dr. Marc Bubbs: Hip mobility, these kinds of things, so it’s been a nice program in the sense that we started the ladies foundation with our guys once they come in at 12 and 13, just get them to moving well and screening them to, you know, help to prevent some reduced injuries on the–on the way up, all the way through to the Senior team.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Got it. Are you familiar with Mike Boyle?
Dr. Marc Bubbs: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Do you use a lot of his type of functional movements when you’re training your–your athletes?
Dr. Marc Bubbs: Yeah, we use–we definitely, you know, one of the things I like about Mike Boyle is he sort of takes into account, you know, what the athlete can do in terms of capacity. You know, sometimes we think, well, you know, lifting from the floor is, you know, the best in terms of range of motion, et cetera, so we want everyone to lift from the floor. But if you have certain athletes depending on their sport, they don’t have the ability to get into that position and then we start loading them. I mean, that’s–that’s a–first you have a recipe for disaster. So sort of figuring out what your athletes have and then working around that is a big one, especially with any kind of jumping sports and basketball players are–are no exception there.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I noticed with basketball players, too. The ankle mobility is a big one and if the ankles–the ankle joint isn’t moving properly that knee really gets shredded. Do you have that same perspective?
Dr. Marc Bubbs: Yeah, I mean, especially in terms of, you know, any squat pattern. I mean, eventually it’s all gonna, you know, just a lot of flexion from the hip and so depending on how you gonna load them, I mean, it’s a–you know, we stay away from a lot of the–the heavier loaded stuff and the back squats and things like that just for that reason. They can’t get into a, you know, a good deep position with the–you know, with their spine and nice spine and angle matching and things like that, so it’s a–it’s definitely one that we work around but, you know, it all–all depends on–on the player.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Do you like doing a lot of single leg squats or a lot of front squats as a replacement for that?
Dr. Marc Bubbs: I think the single leg works great because the guys can get into position. It’s always–you always struggle when you get a guy who’s performing whether it is a basketball or a front squat or Olympic lift, and you know, they’re feeling it more in their spine than they are on their legs. That’s when you obviously know that things need to be shifted and over and that’s where the single leg work can be tremendous. You know, you can really load them up, keep that spine nice and tall and that’s where the guys definitely–especially that the longer they get tend to feel the best.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Got it and then let’s kinda shift here on sports nutrition. I know a lot of our listeners are very athletic and they’re active people, how are you dialing up their macronutrients? How are you adjusting their protein, fats, and carbs based on their–you know, their–their play, their–maybe they wanna lose weight, performance–how are you dosing or adjusting their diet?
Dr. Marc Bubbs: Yeah, this is where we try to work with the guys in sort of a step-wise fashion–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Dr. Marc Bubbs: We always assume that just because someone’s elite level or either in a professional level that that getting all the right things–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Dr. Marc Bubbs: That they need, with their diet and all, you know, unfortunately that’s not always the case. So with our guys, I mean, a lot of it is habit-based as well. So you realize that as much as you can tell someone to eat something, it’s really trying to change their habits, so–because we only have these guys for, you know, 4-6 weeks out of the year, so our–you know, my job and our job is to really help them develop these habits so when they go back to their teams throughout the rest of the year, they can–they can continue along that–those changes that they made. So, you know, the first step is even just in terms of protein intake. So getting the guys, you know, we have a ratio there of, you know, 1.5 to 2 grams per kilogram body weight which–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow.
Dr. Marc Bubbs:
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In this episode, topics include:
00:33 How Dr. Marc got into functional medicine.
6:45 What his do his professional basketball players eat?
15:05 The importance of sleep in recovery.
17:05 How functional medicine and nutrition benefit his athletes.
32:55 How many carbs are right for professional athletes.