Graeme Close

speaker

532 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 5 May

Graeme Close’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

The Offload · British and Irish Lions Head of Performance Graeme Close – THE DRESSING ROOM: Unlocked | The Offload · 5 May 2026 podcast

And when I used to take the muscle biopsies out of them,

before and after the game.

So I convinced the players to let me put a bit of local anesthetic in the leg, a little nick with a scalpel, and the biopsy needle goes in.

I can pull out about a grain of rice worth of muscle.

I can measure the carbohydrate in that muscle before, and I can measure it after the game.

And then based on that, I was able to stand in front of you, hand on heart, and say, we really do need to get this carbohydrate load right, and I've got the science to prove it.

Amazing.

I don't know if you ever come across a lock you played for a few years ago, James Watson.

Yes.

Yeah.

So one thing I love doing is getting former athletes to come and do studies with me.

Yeah, so Hodor came and did his PhD with me.

So he's now Dr. Hodor.

What Hodor did was he managed to convince the players to come in every day for a week, including on the rest day, not to have a biopsy this time, but to measure the metabolism.

So they had to lie down on a bed for half an hour,

with the metabolic hood over the head.

And we was able to measure how many calories they use at rest.

And what was really interesting was the day after a game for Gloucester, the resting metabolic rate increased by 500 calories.

So if a typical player needed 2,400 at rest, the day after a game, they needed 2,900.

which was showing how much the body is crying out for fuel at that point.

Showing 181–200 of 532 · page 10 of 27