Episode 230: Breaking the Injury Cycle - 5 Keys to Prevention and Lowering Risk
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Whether you’re an amateur or a professional athlete, there is no greater source of frustration than repeated cycles of niggles and injuries.
It can derail your progression, dismantle race performance, erode confidence, and dilute your motivation.
While there are myriad reasons for various kinds of injuries, the good news is that most can be preventable, and manageable by adopting practical habits and tactics.
In the first episode of our three-part series on injury management and prevention, Matt shares his observations on patterns, common themes, and mistakes made by athletes and coaches that often lead to injury and the strategies that you should take as an endurance athlete or fitness enthusiast to lower your risk and occurrence of injury.
Matt’s 5 Keys to Injury prevention:
Fueling post-workout - Using nutrition to recuperate and recharge.
(18:10) “It promotes tissue rebuilding and repair...it facilitates adaptations...it's going to fuel your brain for your energy levels throughout the day...so that you can have better clarity, decision-making, focus, etc."
Keep the easy, easy - Leveraging low-intensity sessions.
(20:29) “If you go too strong in the sessions that are designed specifically to be easy, which by the way, tends to be a high portion of your total training hours. And then you are directly removing the body's ability to adapt, you are throughout, with no intent, increasing total training load. And what happens in this situation is the scales tilt, and the net result of that tends to be your tissue health declines, you get injured."
Incorporating multiple sports - Introducing variance to your training
(24:10)“The truth is that the body likes variance. And I cannot think of an amateur athlete who wouldn't benefit...from mixing up their primary sport and ambition with other supportive disciplines.”
Supplement with smart strength training - Strength is part of the plan, not the heart of it.
(27:51)“Just because you follow a strength and conditioning program does not mean that your injury risk is less. It's critical. It's important. It's a part of the recipe, but it isn't the recipe."
Removing intensity - Knowing when to throttle back
(33:14)"But the fact still remains that so many injuries emerge from a place where an athlete ultimately intuitively at their core, know that things are not right. There is deep fatigue, whether it's muscular or systemic. And if the athlete had just paused, gained a little perspective, seeing the bigger picture and then made a decision to push or back off, it would be so valuable."
The goal of this episode is to help you identify any counterproductive practices that may be leaving you exposed to injury and replace them with habits that reduce your chances of injury, create greater consistency and ultimately improve performance.
Episode Timestamps
0:02 - 08:28 Welcome and Episode Introduction
8:34 - The Meat and Potatoes - Episode 230 Breaking the Injury Cycle: 5 Keys to Prevention and Lowering Risk
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Full Transcript
Matt Dixon 00:02
I'm Matt Dixon and welcome to The Purple Patch Podcast. The mission of Purple Patch is to empower and educate every human being to reach their athletic potential. Through the lens of athletic potential, you reach your human potential. The purpose of this podcast is to help time-starved people everywhere, integrate sport into life.
Matt Dixon 00:24
So you've got your strength training, you've got stress levels and inflammation, you've got the myriad of supplements that are available. Foods that you need more of, maybe foods that you need to limit red flags to course correct in your health and performance, there is a lot to consider. It's almost impossible to keep up. But knowledge is power. And with the assessment of your biomarkers combined with the insights and recommendations from the team at InsideTracker, what you get is focus, you get precision, as well as trackable metrics to ensure success and improvement for sports performance health. And of course, longevity, it's a great tool that I use, and you might consider it too. You don't even need to be a Purple Patch athlete to do so all you need to do is head to insidetracker.com/purplepatch and you can use this code PurplePatchPro20, and you get 20% of everything at the store. All right, let's buckle up and dive in. I hope that you enjoy the show.
Matt Dixon 01:33
And welcome to the Purple Patch podcast. As ever, your host, Matt Dixon, and this week, we dive into injuries. Whether you're competing at the pointy end of the professional field, or you're simply aiming to integrate exercise and training into your life. There is nothing more frustrating than repeated cycles of niggles and injuries. It can derail your progression, it can dismantle race performance, it can, of course, erode confidence, and especially if it happens on an ongoing basis is going to absolutely dilute your motivation. It's a big subject. But the good news is, I want to help, we're going to do this in three parts. This week, I want to frame five key actions and strategies that you should take as an endurance athlete or fitness enthusiast to lower your risk and occurrence of injury. Now, I invite you to really treat today's episode as a little bit of a framework, almost a decision-making matrix, and ensure that you apply the lessons from today, to understand that you actually can remain injury free, it is really possible. But I should urge you to consider this. In order to do so, I believe it's going to take a little healthy dose of pragmatism, it's going to take a little bravery on your part, and, of course, some patience. You need to ensure that you're employing some of the supporting habits that we talked about so much on the show, and putting them into action. And so first episode today, if this little mini-series, we're gonna keep it pretty high level. Next episode is gonna get down and deep into the weeds because we want to unpack the role of nutrition and fueling as it relates to injury. Now I need to bring in an expert for this so I'm going to invite back to the show Scott Tindal from FuelIn and we are going to dive into the role of nutrition and how it can impact your opportunity to stay really healthy. We always think about nutrition as body composition or performance in sport, but it has a key role in nutrition or in injury as well. So we want to dive into Scott on one of the subjects that I'm intending to tackle with him is to do a little bit of an unpeeling around RED-S, relative energy deficiency syndrome. Now, I think this is a really important subject to unpack as well as it relates to injury because so many athletes out there intentionally or not actually under fuel and under consume calories relative to the demands that their training dictates. And so we want to really try and paint a picture that is going to be practical for you to apply some of the components in nutrition and other one of the purple patch pillars to help you reduce your risk of injury. The final section of this series, we're going to talk about, well what happens if it does occur. So how do you actually manage injury? when it occurs? How can you navigate bouts of injury, knowing when to push through when to back off, and different scenarios so that you can set up a framework to help you get through sometimes the inevitable factors of injury, but make sure that you can get back on the playing field as quickly as possible, learn from the mistakes and apply the lessons to help you perform over the long term. We're going to dig into some case studies in that episode, and I think it's going to be a great cap to the overall series of what we're talking podcast, Purple Patch style, dialing in with injuries. Alright, so we want to dive into the nuts and bolts pretty quick today. We're not going to do any Matt's News-ings. We're not going to go into Word of the Week or anything like that. But I do want to give you one very quick heads up. Because as we mentioned, there's the three-part series that we're doing around injury. But we've got a lot of other things coming up in the show in the few weeks, that I want you to ensure that you keep tabs on. Of course, we still have our second Ask Matt Anything. I promised that for a couple of weeks now. That is coming, I promise you over the next week or so. And that's going to be diving into the subject around performance, anxiety, and pre-race anxiety. A lot of great questions. We don't need any more questions on the website on that. Thank you to everyone that's participated. With filtered through,
Matt Dixon 05:42
we've got the questions, I'm set up to record. So that is coming in the next couple of weeks, that's going to be a cracker, I think as well. And also I we have got something very different coming up, we are going to do something for as a first on this podcast. You see, between August the 21st and August the 27th, I'm getting my own fair share of performance anxiety on this, I am going to be competing in the legendary Haute Route Alps. It is the original edition of the Haute Route, it is seven days, 800 kilometers 70,000 feet of climbing all through the Alps on my little bicyclette. And so we thought well, let's mark this occasion by doing something different with the show over the course of my suffering torment, navigating adversity, and hopefully a little bit of success at the end. I know it's going to be full of a whole bunch of funny stories, I think it's going to be somewhat educational, a little bit inspirational, maybe for you to go and participate in such an event. But I want to share it with you guys. And so we are going to do a mini-episode every single day of the Haute Route, probably 10 to 15 minutes, we're going to bang in a bunch of videos, a bunch of pictures. And at the end of each day, I'm going to record from whatever mountain town I am in from the Alps, somewhere between Nice and Megeve at the finish line seven days later, I'm going to file my little report, it'll be short, sweet, hopefully, a little bit funny. And we will dial it in across all seven days. We're going to do a video addition and an audio addition for this. Now a lot more details coming soon. And before we do that, I'm going to outline all of my training, as well, as what the event really is. And that's coming up in the next week or so before the Haute Route, so that you can understand how me, as the real epitome of a time-starved athlete, how I've gone about getting ready for something such as such an endurance challenge like this over seven days, with really very limited time in my schedule, I've had to think out the box a little bit of head to introduce running to try and help me get ready for a cycling event. I've had a few bouts of clusters of good opportunity of over distance riding but mostly I've leveraged the bike trainer. And so I'm going to reveal all and how I prepared and then well it's going to be a race of truth isn't it. We'll see how things go. And so that's upcoming, you don't need to know anything, just mark your calendars August the 21st to the 27th. We're going to preview it with a little bit of a special edition on the show. It should be fun. Anyway, with that. Without further ado, let's do this. It is the initial installment of our series of injury. Barry, over to you mate because it is time for the meat and potatoes.
Matt Dixon 08:34
Yes, the meat and potatoes. And look. As we dive into this topic of injury, we have to acknowledge there are no guarantees. There are no magic solutions for everyone that I can provide. But at the same time, I do want to point out that you're absolutely not helpless in this journey. The truth is that most overuse injuries and niggles have a root symptom, or probably more accurately a set of symptoms, and they have been contributed to or accumulated to cause a breakdown in your tissue. Now over the last 20 years of coaching or so I've seen many different types of setbacks and injuries. I've supported so many athletes through this situation. And I've also been lucky enough to work with some of the best therapists, bodyworkers, and specialists in the field of injury treatment and management, each time having the opportunity to learn through our collaboration. Now, what I have observed is patterns, common themes, and most importantly, perhaps for the sake of this show consistent mistakes that have been made by athletes and coaches. And so it seems appropriate to share some of these insights. So what I'd like to do to introduce us to this topic is keep today's episode quite tight, quite accessible for you, but ensure that you can leave today with the mindset and the framework that is really actionable. So I hope after today's show, you can actually take your headphones off, get out to the real world and take action. That's the most important thing. Can you take action that will directly improve your opportunity to avoid injury? Because the more that we can keep you consistent, the more happy you will be, but also, the better that you will perform. Now next week, of course, as promised, we're going to dive really deep into some of the nuances but especially around that big topic of nutrition. But you can hold your breath for right now you can wait for that one. And so what are my five key strategies and lessons that I can introduce to you over 20 years of coaching that have directly led, I believe, to a reduction of risk of injury?
Matt Dixon 10:49
All right, so five lessons, super stuff. But before we dive into each one of those five lessons, I think I need to provide my perspective on injury. When somebody gets injured, they typically want a culprit, they want an answer to the why, and it's understandable. But the truth is that it's seldom a single reason for an injury that bubbles up, we should also acknowledge that there is a genetic predisposition to injury, especially tissue injury overuse risks. For example, by way of using me, which I don't like to do as a coach too much, but I happen to be really resilient, I'm less prone to overuse injuries. And lucky for me bully for me. But on the flip side, I tend to have more challenges around systemic energy and health. And so as I break down to overstress, I wouldn't have Achilles or hamstrings or anything component like that, I would just have a really, really low bout of energy. Hence, as I went through the chassis is strong, but my system was weaker. And I went through chronic fatigue as an athlete. On the flip side, other people are really prone to injury. And those folks, if you're listening, it might be you, you've got to be really smart when it comes to avoiding and managing injury. And so I think as you listen today, it's important that you know thyself. A nice way to consider tissue injury is the simple fact that nearly all injuries relating to your tissue, so your muscles, your ligaments, your tendons, etcetera, exclusive of those that are directly caused by impact. Most tissue injuries occur because of too much load relative to the amount of recovery and or critical supporting habits that facilitate recovery. So let this sit. Okay, let's think about this. This is important as we go into it. Training is a stressor, it's an important stressor, it's a specific stressor, and the body must meet the demand of that stressor. And so when we either and there are two components to this, but when we either apply too much stress that the body is actually a quick to adapt to at that current state of fitness or level of fatigue, or as a coach or as an athlete, if we ramp training load too quickly, and even sometimes have a single session that the body is just not ready for, then tissue injuries can occur. And we all know that. You go and run a really, really hard track session and boom the hamstring goes, or you're just overloading with absolutely chaotic really, really fast ramp to I've got to get ready for my 5k I've only got three weeks, so I'm going to go and try and run 20 hours in the first week, injuries can occur. And so there's an overload of total stress applied, either in rate of ramping, or rate of load or in total accumulation, or even sometimes in a single session. So that's one component that can create tissue injury. But it's important, I think, as we go through this to not ignore the other side of the equation as well. Typically, under-recovery components such as not enough sleep, inadequate self-care, no mobility work to facilitate recuperation, some poor habits around fueling, or post-workout fueling, perhaps you have very poor hydration during the day under eating relative to your training demands something that we're really going to dig into next week. And these factors, these components that we would call the supporting cast, on the ability to help force adaptations and recuperation to the tissue and the muscles. Those are really key to the fact that it can lead to an increased risk of injury. And so when you think about all those other components, total load ramp of loads, single session load, and then you've got sleep recovery, hydration, nutrition, etc, etc, etc. Before we even think about life stress, it's really easy to understand why I say that it's very seldom that you can point to a single factor that creates an overuse tissue injury. Okay, now, remember, I'm removing things I spraining an ankle, or getting injured by falls and crashes and things like that. And so this is why, when we talk about injuries, you might hear me as a coach talking about what look just because you foam roll or just because you stretch, that's not going to prevent injury. Or at the same breath, I might say, look, strength training isn't a foolproof injury prevention tool. And on from here and on from here, it's because most injuries occur from a poor training or performance recipe. There are some really bad training programs out there, that actually may not lead to injury, because they're supporting with great habits such as sleep, recovery, and nutrition. And on the flip side, there are some wonderful training programs. But the athlete still experiences injury because they are not supported. They are surrounded with poor habits. And this is central to why we must almost look holistically at the whole recipe of an athlete. Ultimately, it comes back to our four pillars, you need to build a smart training program, support it with integrated strength and mobility, embrace positive habits around nutrition and hydration, and then ensure you dial in your recovery and your sleep. And then you're on course for less injury, greater consistency, and ultimately improved performance. And ultimately, that's the secret if there is such a secret. And so with that perspective, let's dive in. Let's pick apart the five key non-negotiable tactics that you should deploy right after today's show if you're not doing so already so that you can reduce your risk of injury.
Matt Dixon 17:03
All right, these are the things that I believe every athlete every fitness enthusiast should embrace. But also commit to it. All right, Barry give them in the number here, here we go. We start the list of five, five of them, the magic five. Number one, here is my number one thing, fueling post workouts. It's always my number one. Following training, I encourage you to consume plenty of protein and carbohydrates. Now, this is part of the reason that I actually really love athletes, if at all possible, particularly time-starved athletes, to try and shift their training into the morning. The body is really able to accept the training. But it also makes it practically and logistically easier if it fits into the fabric of your life. You can get up, you can train, and then you make your breakfast the biggest meal of the day. The role of protein in this way, it's a great facilitator in reducing your stress hormones cortisone or hormones that we've talked about. It promotes tissue rebuilding and repair. And it facilitates adaptations, physiological adaptations from the stress of that you've placed on your body through that training. So protein is a huge pillar of that post-workout fueling. The other part of it is carbohydrate. So what's the role of carbohydrates? Well, that carbohydrate that you ingest will restock your fuel that you have burned through during training, it's going to fuel your brain for your energy levels throughout the day, brain relies on glucose and so, therefore, restocking it make sure that you have fuel so that you can have better clarity, decision-making focus, etc. And on top of it, consuming that carbohydrate early is going to remove starvation signals that can occur. And so, therefore, it's going to facilitate your best eating choices for the rest of the day. And so what I have observed is athletes tend to create better-eating choices with this habit ingrained into their daily training life. Every single training session, it makes it easier to manage your eating habits, it leads to improved choices during the rest of the day. And as you will learn next time with our discussion of Scott Tindal around injury in nutrition, most athletes tend to vastly under fuel relative to training. And so this habit sets you up, from my perspective as a coach, sets you up for better success. Now, with all of this under here, as an athlete, someone that's training, I encourage you to ignore the pull of intermittent fasting. I would make sure that you reduce or remove the part of your life of caloric reduction. Instead, think about building tissue health, maximizing mental energy and clarity and ensure that you dial in my number one habit for injury prevention is post-workout fueling every time. That is number one. Good. Let's move to number two.
Matt Dixon 20:09
So number two on our top five list of injury prevention tactics, ensuring that you're easy is easy, highly motivated and ambitious athletes their biggest injury cause it is not from going too hard in the key sessions. Instead, it's from bringing the bottom up. If you go too strong in the sessions that are designed specifically to be easy, which by the way, tends to be a high portion of your total training hours. And then you are directly removing the body's ability to adapt, you are throughout, with no intent, increasing total training load. And what happens in this situation is the scales tilt, and the net result of that tends to be your tissue health declines, you get injured. That's why your plantar fasciitis flares up your hamstring pulls your Achilles strains. It's typically in large part because of making the easy too strong. And so go easy, really easy in the easy. And you're likely on a way on a pathway towards better tissue health. Now realize this is a really tough thing to do in practice, you're motivated, you're ambitious, you're working hard. And it's so so easy to allow the bottom to creep up, to go into higher intensity. So many athletes get this wrong, and they don't realize they're getting it wrong. So we try and facilitate success at Purple Patch by doing two main things. The first is identifying and tagging the key sessions of the weeks, the ones that tend to be the tougher workouts. All right, Jemima, go at it, hit it hard. And this creates a hierarchy. And therefore there's a higher chance or perhaps opportunity that the athlete will actually adhere to the easy because they understand these are my chances to hit out. So here are the supporting workouts and the design and the specificity of the lower stress sessions are there for purpose. So that's a good component. But a second thing that we do is label the really easy sessions as soul-filling, shifting the mental landscape from just another training session, to actually a session that provides the value of training. But is also specifically designed in the week to create a pressure release valve. That pressure release valve is to
Matt Dixon 22:38
lower it down from all of life's challenges. This really helps athletes to better adhere to the ask of the coach of a program. Now, I want to keep five tactics for today for accessibility, isn't it so much cuter when we have five and not six tactics. But that means that I have to kind of sneak one of these in the back door. So we're going to call this 2B. Associated with going easy, is something else that I want to talk about right here under the banner of our second tactic, and that is sleep, I'm going to partner going easy with embracing sleep, and I'm going to keep it short. But I had to weave it in here somehow. If your habits around sleep, whether it's in terms of your average, nightly sleep duration, and or in terms of the quality of your sleep if either or both of those are compromised, and then directly your risk of tissue injury is massively elevated. You cannot expect to stay healthy and improve performance with poor sleep. That's simple enough for you. Good. That means that we are too down and we can move on to our third tactic.
Matt Dixon 23:50
This one is more fundamental one, but it's absolutely central to much of Purple Patch success. I encourage you if you want to stay injury free, I encourage you to leverage multiple sports. Embrace being a multi-sport athlete. What do I mean by that? Well, the truth is that the body likes variance. And I cannot think of an amateur athlete who wouldn't benefit who doesn't benefit from mixing up their primary sport and ambition with other supportive disciplines. Now, perhaps we can take swimming out of that equation. If you're a swimmer, then you got to swim, but runner's leveraging riding, rowing or swimming, super. Bike riders able to use a time-efficient use of running or swimming or rowing. We're going to talk about that with my adventures of the Haute Route really, really valuable. Having a more global perspective, placing a wider stimulus on the body to adapt, and especially leveraging and leaning into non-weight-bearing disciplines in sports that tend to be weight-bearing as your primary example is really, really positive. Let me give you an example here: Running. Okay. If you are a runner, there is a whole bunch of positives about running. The load on your tissue, muscles, ligaments, tendons, etc. The load is good. It's really healthy. We want to run, it's good for bone health, it's good to muscular health, etc. We want to get strong muscles, we want to get strong bones. But too much running can massively ramp up injury risk, particularly if you start training and including intensity into that running intervals, etc. And so we want to hit running, we want to make sure that you dial in running consistency, but you support with really high-value complementary disciplines, such as rowing, really good for posterior activation and global conditioning. Swimming is a great chance for high intensity on the cardiovascular system, but absolutely no weight-bearing component to it. Muscle resilience and conditioning via bike riding intervals, all of these elements could be leveraged and can be leveraged to help you improve your running performance. And that becomes really important. It doesn't detract from the focus, but you can train and improve your performance while staying healthy by becoming a multi-sport athlete. Now, it's really, really mentally challenging for elite athletes and amateur athletes alike, but every Purple Patch athlete of all levels, embraces the concept. And we've seen some magical performances and personal breakthroughs by taking a single discipline, sport, bike riding, running, whatever it might be, and leveraging a multi-sport mindset to it. And guess what, these athletes have a much much lower risk and occurrence of injury becomes really, really important. And so tactic number three, indeed, leverage multi-sport approach, no matter what your sport is, of course, the triathletes (inaudible) it all worked out anyway because a big fabric of their sport is swim, bike and run.
Matt Dixon 27:12
Alright, so two to go. And this one, I assume you might have thought he's gonna put this right at the top strength and conditioning is really important. And it is, but we're going to layer it in as number four on our list of tactics, a consistent and our lead time efficient adoption of strength, mobility, and prehab. Now, unfortunately, I think many fall into the trap of believing that this is the answer to your injury prevention. The truth is it isn't. It can only ever be a part of the answer. It's an important part. But this isn't the solution. Just because you follow a strength and conditioning program does not mean that your injury risk is less. It's critical. It's important. It's a part of the recipe, but it isn't the recipe. Now, on top of that as an endurance athlete or fitness enthusiast, your adoption of a strength and conditioning program should not become a monkey on the back. It equally shouldn't become such a focus that it dilutes your key training focus. What do I mean by that? So if you're a runner, your primary Bullseye training is running. You might be supporting that with some multidisciplinary or multi-sport approaches. It might be rowing, it might be cycling, it might be a combination of a few components, and you should absolutely do strength. But that should never come in front of your running. If you're a triathlete. Your three bull's eyes are swimming bike and run. A critical supporting element is strength. That's why it's number four, it's important to adhere. But it isn't the bullseye, it isn't the magic solution that everyone makes it up to be. Now, a few key tidbits when we talk about strength. Number one, it's absolutely advised and fine to integrate this into life, you can do a lot of the prehab and mobility work, even some of the core work in front of the TV, embrace office mobility, you can integrate it into the day it doesn't need to always be a standalone session. And in fact, I would argue that small consistent little efforts in this area are better than really time-dominating daily sessions that make the total program of load completely unsustainable relative to your life. So it doesn't need to be in a single session. The one thing that I would like to see with every athlete is at least twice weekly, little mini sessions 10, 15, 20, up to 40 minutes of real strength training.
Matt Dixon 29:49
We are designed to lift heavy things. And so if you disperse the little tidbits of mobility, core, and prehab work across life and do it as you can had, the only thing that you have to commit to as an endurance athlete or enthusiast is that twice weekly little mini sessions of real strength training, and it's really important. Now I'd add to this, that I would encourage you for tune-ups, getting really regular bodywork. That's generally massive for most athletes at the Purple Patch Performance Center in San Francisco, we partner with the orthopedic massage specialist Sports Medicine Institute SMI. They're fantastic. I myself weekly, sometimes bi-weekly or twice monthly, if you want to think about it in those terms, some really, really deep bodywork that you can get right into the fascia that you, we, me, are not equipped to safely go into. It becomes a really, really good investment if it fits into your budget and fits into your time schedule. So I would argue that under the big banner of prehab, mobility and strength. This goes well beyond just injury prevention. This extends beyond your sport. This is massive in your health, we should lift heavy things. It also has a big role in your body composition and therefore, by proxy, injury prevention, and injury reduction as well. And it is absolutely non-negotiable and critical for mature athletes, fitness, female athletes, especially those that are edging towards perimenopause and beyond. And so really, ultimately, this big pillar of strength. We're talking about it in terms of injury prevention today, but I should, as I always do come back to, you should have it as a part of the fabric of your life. It's important. So, folks, we're almost there.
Matt Dixon 31:42
Four down one to go. What can be our final tactic the very last one? Well, if you're brave enough to adopt this little tactic, I promise you that your risk of injury will plummet, it will plummet. But I preface this, it takes bravery takes some confidence. It requires some real big picture thinking little bit of perspective. And it's easier done if you've got great coaching support. Number five, here it is the last one. When in doubt, remove intensity. When in doubt, remove intensity and that's removing intensity from your program, your training your sessions. If you can get in front of niggles it is a huge risk reduction tool. Now, this isn't art, this is less of a science, although you can use metrics and data to help frame that decision-making that's a conversation for another day. But it is an art, it comes with performance or sports wisdom. Now, this is important. As we talk about this, saying If in doubt, remove intensity doesn't mean that you skip training every time you get tired. Fatigue isn't a reason to retreat. In addition, if your muscles get sore, that's not like oh, he said, pull out the intensity. That's not what I'm talking about here. But the fact still remains that so many injuries emerge from a place where an athlete ultimately intuitively at their core, know that things are not right. There is deep fatigue, whether it's muscular or systemic. And if the athlete had just paused, gained a little perspective, seeing the bigger picture, and then made a decision to push or back off, it would be so valuable. But instead, we tend to be stubborn. And so it's important that you embrace. If in doubt, if they're really systemically tired, if sore in not a good way you don't drive through. Instead, you retreat. And that can become a powerful tool in injury prevention. Now, in addition to this, you want to build on your lessons, you always want to as an athlete maintain bigger picture view.
Matt Dixon 34:06
And if in doubt, I prefer the removal of intensity. But don't remove the whole session. Just dial it down. Now, let me refine this a little bit what I'm talking about. There are some days where let's make it up, I ask you to hit six intervals for four minutes. And these are going to be very strong. But I just feel I'm not quite right. I was tired systemically and my muscles were really, really tight. So I have a couple of options here, six by four minutes is obviously a key interval session. The first path is I could just convert it to an endurance day I could save that interval session for another day. And that's often a good smart, sensible path. Another thing I could do or another path I could take is actually just maintain this session, but just don't obsess around the specific pace or power that I might intend to hit. So let's imagine it was a running session six by four minutes, give or take about six by one kilometer. Let's imagine that that might be six and a half minute miles for me. Perhaps as I go and hit that session for the first couple, instead of doing six and a half minute miles, I might go 6.40, 6.50s, 10, 15, 20 seconds per mile easier. I stay within the envelope, at least for the initial two or three intervals. In other words, success at an interval workout isn't always doing more. Toughness isn't just simply chasing better no matter what. Instead, it's about stringing together training. And if that sometimes means just backing off a little bit retreating, sometimes in the big picture, that's a huge step forward.
Matt Dixon 34:25
And so these five tactics all accumulate, to create your basics. Your building blocks, your habits, and tactics so that you can facilitate lower risk of injury. Next week, we're going to welcome Scott Tindal from fueling and I'm going to have a chat on nutrition and injury. And of course, we're going to include RED-S on that. It's an important one, I think Scott can really help paint some specific building blocks to success. And so until next time, stay smart fuel up, sleep well. Make sure that you keep yourself niggle free. Cheers. Take care.
Matt Dixon 36:28
Guys, thanks so much for joining. And thank you for listening, I hope that you enjoyed the new format. You can never miss an episode by simply subscribing, head to the Purple Patch channel of YouTube, and you will find it there. And you could subscribe, of course, I'd like to ask you, if you will subscribe. Also, share it with your friends. And it's really helpful if you leave a nice positive review in the comments. Now any questions that you have, let me know feel free to add a comment and I will try my best to respond and support you on your performance journey. And in fact, as we commence this video podcast experience, if you have any feedback at all, as mentioned earlier in the show, we would love your help in helping us to improve. Simply email us info@purplepatchfitness.com or leave it in the comments of the show at the Purple Patch page. And we will get you dialed in. We'd love constructive feedback. We are in a growth mindset as we like to call it. And so feel free to share with your friends. But as I said, Let's build this together. Let's make it something special. It's really fun. We're really trying hard to make it a special experience. And we want to welcome you into the Purple Patch community. With that. I hope you have a great week. Stay healthy, have fun, keep smiling, doing whatever you do. Take care.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
injury, athlete, session, training, running, important, sport, niggles, tissue injury, performance, habits, tissue, tactics, nutrition, components, patch, supporting, injury prevention, dive