WATCH: How to Elevate Your Training Through Precision Medicine

Everyone knows that training for an upcoming race is no easy feat. But whether you're looking to improve your time or conquer an obstacle that has bested you in the past, you probably have a general idea of how to train for a race weekend.

But imagine if you had a roadmap that told you exactly what to eat, how to maximize your energy, and the best way to recover. Spartan's official healthcare provider, Wild Health, uses precision medicine to provide you with a fully personalized and comprehensive health report so you can live like a Spartan. In a recent webinar, Spartan's Chief Mind Doc Dr. Lara Pence, four-time CrossFit Games competitor and physician Dr. Julie Foucher, and Wild Health coach Nate Barry discussed how you can effectively incorporate precision healthcare into your fitness routine.

Watch the webinar in its entirety above, and check out some of the important topics covered (with timestamps) below.

What Is the Value Add of Wild Health?

Nate Barry (14:17): I think the big one is you cannot out-train an unhealthy physiology.

Your health at a cellular level is your foundation, and that's going to dictate your health outcomes, how you respond to that stress, etc. It's also going to dictate your response over the long term and increase those performance outcomes.

What Is Wild Health's Approach to Nutrition?

Dr. Julie Foucher (20:30): We know that our genetics are our blueprint, but they're not the be-all and end-all. We know that our genes are expressed based on the environment they're exposed to. We have this idea of epigenetics, so we don't necessarily want to make a nutritional change just because our genetics say something.

What we look at from a genetic standpoint is how well it looks like our body should respond to fats and carbs, and then specifically saturated fats (macronutrients). Then we look at what our lab markers show. Do they show any signs of insulin resistance? Do we show any hyperlipidemia? Then, from there, we'll be able to determine any changes that might be beneficial for a person's diet.

On the Innovation Behind Health Coaching

Dr. Lara Pence (27:20): I think that's so important because, in my experience working in the standard Western healthcare system, it always feels like we're looking for illness rather than shaping for wellness. As a psychologist, of course, that rubs at me like sandpaper. In terms of this coaching element, you're not just there to be detectives about what's going wrong. You're there to help create solutions for what could be better.