The Power of Training for Life Performance
If you read this article, you will learn that:
Adopting an athletic mindset gives you health, energy, and performance across sport and life.
It is never too late to change and improve.
Integrating simple and basic habits will lead to improved energy and health.
The Athlete:
Markus is a 67-year-old investment professional navigating a busy life traveling for work while remaining a dedicated family man. When Markus first joined us at Purple Patch, at the age of 56, he was eager to improve his riding performance, health, and energy for the rest of his life. At this time in his life, Markus was riding purely for fun but, inconsistently, without any supporting strength work or particular interest in running or swimming. He also experienced inconsistent sleep and energy management, likely amplified by his travel schedule and work stress.
When Markus approached us for help, he understood the constraints of a busy life. He was keen to improve his physical health but asserted his need for enjoyment and freedom surrounding his work, social life, and family. The key concept we honed in on with Markus was: integrating training into life over domination and obsession. Sport and exercise were intended to give him more energy for his life, not less.
Given Markus’ time constraints and various non-negotiable responsibilities, we came up with a manageable goal – get Markus to 90% of his physical potential. This would allow for performance within the context of life while still leaving room for progression and a sense of accomplishment from his sporting journey.
I knew right away Markus was not going to be a cut-and-dry prescription. Instead, we needed to delve into Markus’ current habits and best design a tailored plan to suit his life.
The Challenge:
Creating a flexible but structured training program that accommodates extensive business travel and essential family time.
We split Markus’ challenges into two buckets: lifestyle habits and training. While lifestyle habits are quick to integrate, they require dedication and planning to consistently incorporate them into one's life. Creating a realistic training plan is a longer-term task that often requires tweaks and fixes along the way. It is, however, the most rewarding aspect of a performance journey – seeing monthly or even weekly improvements.
Lifestyle Challenges
Sleep: I’m sure you’ve heard me go on about the importance of sleep for proper and consistent performance in life and training. Unfortunately, Markus’s hectic and shifting work and travel schedule made it challenging to adhere to a regular sleep routine. Therefore, I asked him to prioritize sleep, assuring him of its necessity for productive work life and continued positive response to the training stimulus.
Energy Management: Markus continually suffered from fluctuating energy levels due to poor sleeping and ‘on the road’ eating habits. Especially troublesome were his daily mid-morning and afternoon slumps.
Sickness: It may come as no surprise that the combination of frequent travel, lackluster hydration and nutrition practices, and poor sleep led to Markus suffering from minor but persistent bouts of illness. Colds and sniffles like this interrupt the balance of adequate training and general life and can be disastrous if not handled.
Training Challenges
Single Sport: Markus almost exclusively rode his bike outside, with no other activities pursued. The single sport focus presented two issues. The first was a limited training stimulus that was non-weight bearing and only lower body in focus. The second was that he had limited access to his bicycle with his frequent travel schedule. With no other options or activities, he couldn’t maintain consistency. As we all know, consistency is the cornerstone of progress. Cross-training was the answer.
No Strength Work: Strength training is essential in our book for all the reasons we discuss. It is even more critical to develop and maintain lean muscle mass as you age. Markus was doing zero-strength work meaning there were enormous opportunities for growth in his stability, mobility, and power generation.
Lack of Riding Skill: As an older onset rider, Markus was, understandably, a little apprehensive about outdoor bike skills like descents, cornering, and wind management. On top of this, Markus was particularly stiff on a bicycle due to back problems. If Markus was going to enter endurance riding events, he would have to develop the requisite skills and posture.
No Structure: While Markus enjoyed riding and spent a decent amount of time in the saddle, there was no real organization to the ‘training’ he undertook. It was mostly just an accumulation of miles. While this will lead to reasonable rookie leaps in performance, some actual structure is required for long-term improvement.
The Solution:
Markus had a good starting point. He was willing to do the work and had already committed to regular exercise; however, bringing him to 90% of his athletic potential was an undertaking.
I decided to split his athletic and performance journey into two parts:
Begin by consistently nailing training and the supporting lifestyle key habits
Progress into goal-setting and performance evolution
The approach would be a long-term project, so I asked Markus if he could commit for a significant time period. He agreed and embraced the process. Taking a long-term lens allowed us to stay calm, and the long-term lens put assurances in place that would transform his life in meaningful and sustainable ways.
Training and Key Habits
Indoor Bike Intervals:
Created structure in the training journey, making training more enjoyable and effective.
Developed awareness of the riding ‘toolkit,’ not just spinning. Riding should be more than a mode of exercise.
Indoor riding provided a safe environment for feedback on posture, form, and pedaling, which can eventually apply to outdoor riding.
Strength Program:
I immediately put Markus on the Purple Patch Strength Program, incorporating lifting, mobility, and coordination sessions.
Markus committed to once weekly in-person strength sessions, ensuring accountability and emphasizing education of the movements to hammer in proper form and, therefore, a good ROI from the practice.
Outside Riding:
We let Markus’ outside riding remain unstructured and free. We avoided integrating too much extra training stress to avoid early overload.
Lifestyle Habits
Post-Workout Fueling and Daily Breakfast:
We emphasized the importance of protein to reduce stress hormones and facilitate recovery after workouts.
Dismissed anti-carb propaganda and ensured Markus was intaking carbs in sufficient portions for recovery and brain fuel.
We call small changes like this ‘instant fixes’ (as much as I hate the term) because they almost immediately improve energy management and training effectiveness.
Hydration:
I imprinted on Markus the value of proper hydration for energy consistency and the functioning of the immune system. His hydration plan needed to improve throughout the day, not just around workouts.
Performance Evolution
Markus was and still is very busy. The ability to focus on the most significant components in life is a critical consideration. Just in our corner of the sport, we could take Markus’ approach and arrive at one hundred or more aspects to refine and evolve. Unfortunately, it is impossible to focus on many such things and be successful. Our initial intervention phase enabled proper training execution and decluttering of the focus. We needed Markus first to nail the basics. From there, we built.
We evolved by integrating a multisport regime. For example, Markus was initially intrigued by the challenge of swimming, so we arranged for him to swim with the Purple Patch squad twice weekly. The reasons behind this for Markus were not simply physiological but included the benefits of accountability, feedback, guidance, and a sense of community. Physiologically, swimming is also a great way to build your cardiovascular engine without the risk of injury.
I finally allowed Markus to get goal-oriented. You may have noticed we did not begin by outlining goals but instead led Markus to nail the basics of good habits and a consistent training plan. Once we did this, he felt comfortable and confident, and we could then and only then set lofty goals.
After some months of consistency and progression, goal-setting gave Markus a fire in his belly. He decided to focus on the biking end of things and use swimming as support, leveraging strength work to keep him healthy and strong.
Markus signed up for several riding tours, which included:
The Death Ride - a tough 120-mile single-day race in the mountains of California featuring 15,000 feet of climbing.
An extended but more relaxed Tour of Tuscany, a six-day ride through the hills of Tuscany.
Finally, the big challenge, The Haute Route, a grueling seven-day adventure in the French and Swiss Alps of over 100 miles each day and a total of 70,000 feet of climbing for the week.
The Results
We started with a simple assessment: tell me how you feel on a day-to-day basis. We didn't focus on metrics or body weight; instead, we validated how Markus felt in training and daily life.
The initial preparatory phase was the most important, as it provided Markus with both confidence and a platform of health and fitness to chase his goals.
Four weeks into the program: Markus’ energy was higher and more consistent, his sleep was improved, and heart-warmingly, he reported being happier than ever.
Four months into the program: Markus saw a massive improvement in all training metrics. More power, sustainable endurance, and improved skills and terrain management. In addition, he fell in love with riding outdoors while embracing the importance of the supportive indoor focus, remained injury-free, and maintained impressive training consistency.
Markus also reported improved performance in work and better life structure and organization. What's the saying? “You want something done; give it to someone busy.”
Markus’ fear of not having the time to train was unfounded. Adding training structure and a focus on his supporting lifestyle habits, his energy changed, and he had more capacity for the demands of life.
The evolution of Markus’ performance continues. He now identifies as an athlete, less to do with any placings in events, more aligned with his appreciation of the power of applying an athletic mindset to his hobby and performance in life. He is training – for life. He has accomplished more than he could ever dream of, all with vastly improved global health and energy levels. When tying this together with the joy found in becoming a part of a supportive and like-minded community, Markus no longer views exercise and riding as something he ‘should do to improve health. Instead, he now views training and performance as central to being healthy, a great leader, and a wonderful father and husband.
Perhaps the most inspirational piece of Markus’ journey is that it is not finished. There is no complacency, and he still chases his one high performance in sport and life. His evolution began more than ten years ago, but he remains hungry for growth and development; he still chases performance gains. It is never too late to evolve your approach, and once on track, the results and rewards don’t have to dry up.