Episode 255: Data and Analytics - How You Can Leverage for Better Performance in a Time-starved Life
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Data, metrics, technology, and analytics - there are tools and tech that measure everything for an athlete. Wearables and apps track your sleep data, monitor your glucose, detail your sweat composition, and offer an endless list of information.
For some people, tracking and assessing every training minute represents a drive toward high performance and specificity.
For others, the data is a distraction that can be confusing and even lead to paralysis of performance.
Some people go all in and build their performance around the information, while others prefer to ignore it and dismiss it altogether.
So, how do you find balance? How do you use the gadgets, tools, and available analytics to amplify your athletic performance?
In today’s episode of the Purple Patch Podcast, Matt breaks down performance data into two main ideas looked at through the lens of the time-starved athlete.
Matt discusses:
How to get the most out of devices that track power and pace during training or a race.
By just viewing the simple fact that your power and pace is just simply information on output, it can open up the gateway to create a much more harmonious and powerful measure for you. (33:27)
and
How to leverage wearables and health-tracking devices without becoming consumed by the information.
If you choose to go out and get an Aura Ring or a Whoop band or look at some of the information that comes off of your watches, and you decide to utilize these tools, you better be able to get out of the weeds on the day to day basis, and come up for a broader perspective. (43:28)
Matt provides perspective on how to utilize data and metrics to support your progress, and how to identify what works for you and what is simply cluttering your performance journey.
Episode Timestamps
00:00 - 5:35 - Welcome and Episode Introduction
5:43 - 54:21 - The Meat and Potatoes - Episode 255: Data and Analytics - How You Can Leverage for Better Performance in a Time-starved Life
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Full Transcript
Matt Dixon 00:03
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 00:25
Hey, folks, today's show is all about data and analytics. And we're going to dig in pretty deep. And I'm going to try and give you my perspective on the best way to leverage a couple of the tools that are available to athletes nowadays. But I'll tell you one piece of information that is insightful, and that's the knowledge and recommendations that you get from taking a look inside at your biometrics. When you combine it with the advice and experience from all of the scientists and physiologists at InsideTracker, you get clarity, you get the ability to actually focus on the elements that are going to yield the biggest performance gains around your health. And of course, extending into sports performance. It's why we leverage it at all at Purple Patch. The good news is you don't need to be a Purple Patch athlete to also get on the ride. All you have to do is head to insidetracker.com/purplepatch that's insidetracker.com/purple patch, and you can also get 20% off everything of the store. Yes, it is PurplePatchPro20, that's Purple Patch Pro two zero, and that'll give you a cheeky 20% off. I think that's worthwhile, take a look inside, get a little bit of clarity, it is some form of analysis and information that can actually yield directly to measurable gains. And that's what I love about it. Well, with that, let's get going. It's about feeling. And it's about quantifiable insights. Let's talk about data and analytics, enjoy the show.
Matt Dixon 01:59
And welcome to the Purple Patch podcast as ever, your host, Matt Dixon. And let's get going today. Data, metrics technology, analytics - for some, tracking and assessing, and analyzing every training minute --- represents a drive towards high performance and specificity. For others, it can become a distraction, confusing, even leads to a little bit of paralysis of performance, through all of the noise that it can create. So the question is, how should you approach some of the tools and gadgets and available analytics that are so freely available to you now, or at least you can be sold them? We get so many questions about data, gadgets, and analytics. And so as I began mapping the show, I thought you know what, I'm going to complete a comprehensive guide to all. And before long, I realized, goodness me, I just simply cannot do it justice in a single show. It's such a broad concept. We're talking about analytics over longitudinal health, about what you're doing, as you're navigating through training sessions, post-analysis and review, and looking for longitudinal gains. It would just become a whole full online course before you know it. That sparks an idea.
Matt Dixon 03:13
But anyhow, today, what I thought I'd do is narrow the focus a little bit as an introduction, what I'm going to do is discuss two of the main questions that we tend to get around data and analytics. And we're going to try and answer these through the lens of you being a time-starved athlete there's a broad spectrum of athletes from world-class, to time-starved to newbies. And so I want to put a filter over my responses because how I respond to these questions might be similar but a little different, depending on if you're working with a professional athlete versus someone that has a lot of competing demands in life. And so we're going to dive into two main aspects today.
Matt Dixon 03:54
The first power meters and pace or GPS trackers. Now the power meters generally typically, they're utilized on the bicycle. GPS, in other words, pace, use more on the run. So that's the umbrella that I'm going to talk about over those two elements. How should you approach them as a time-starved athlete?
Matt Dixon 04:14
The second component is something that's really exploded in popularity, we can call it or label it wearables, health tracking, wearable devices. Those are things like some of the information you can glean on the Apple Watch, maybe on the Garmin, and of course the Aura Ring and the Whoop Band. And so I'm going to talk a little bit about the perspective of drawing some of the insights into there where it can actually become applied and useful to you. And so I hope by the end of today, it's going to be helpful, supply a little bit of perspective, but also give you some action to go away through. I should add at the end of the show. There is going to be one little bonus piece that you're not going to want to miss. But generally, we are focusing on two main components, power, and pace a measuring that during training for the most part. We're gonna talk a little bit about post-training analysis but mostly during in-flight. And then the second --- variable is around Aura Rings, Whoop Bands and so health tracking devices or wearables as we can label it from there, and I hope it's helpful. We are going to skip and bypass Matt's musings today I'm going to get right to the main part of the show. We are not going to do word of the week, we're still trying to let Barry’s fingers and his calluses heal so you get the week off the ukulele Berry. But I do get to say to you, and everyone at home, let's get on with the meat and potatoes.
Matt Dixon 05:43
Yes, folks, the meat potatoes, and it is all about data and analytics. So if you think about this, I can think of no better way than to discuss the current pinnacle of professional triathlon because right at the top, right at the peak of that mounting of performance sets the Norwegian train Gustav Iden and Kristian Blummenfelt to teammates who are surrounded, and this is important, but surrounded by a high functioning and well-funded group of coaches, scientists, and analysts. And these are experts that are well known. They're renowned for using a whole bunch of analytics and scientific methods to try and develop the training program. And of course, monitor other performance variables to help these two athletes become what they've become. And it's interesting because that's not the first time that we've seen science collectively sort of thrown at the challenge in many ways. In fact, if we go back to 2010, and the subsequent years from there, and we extend our thinking into the cycling world, well, the whole world of cycling experienced the emergence of Team Sky, you might remember it. It followed on the heels of a fantastic success of the British Cycling Team across both the Olympic and world championship events. And both British Cycling, as well as Team Sky, were absolutely renowned for their science-based chase of what has now become the trendy label of incremental gains. Looking for small small pieces of gains with when you add them all up, create big marginal improvements that ultimately are the difference between taking a metal and going home empty-handed. And underneath all of that, us as coaches and athletes, and ultimately, consumers, we are inundated. We get blizzards and blizzards of recommendations, and marketing all around the cool gadgets, the apps, the different approaches, all of them claiming that they are the thing that gateway for you finding improved speed, faster splits, elevated performance. We are sitting in sports in the technology age. And by definition, our sports are infused with so many options that quite frankly, it's dizzying. It covers so many areas, what you should do and add into analyze and assess your training and your racing. What you should do post training around reviewing and analysis, some longitudinal performance tracking, am I actually getting better, we can show you through data. And then we have the wearables, when we think about tracking of heart rate variability, we'll get into that a little bit later in the show, resting heart rate. We've got sweat composition on the fly, glucose monitoring, recovery scores, readiness and so much more.
Matt Dixon 08:30
And so in other words, I just throw that at you to highlight the fact that we don't have an access challenge as athletes and coaches, we've got a focus conundrum. What shall we give our limited capacity? And our focus to when it comes to data and analytics? It is a really hard puzzle to find. You thought you were busy enough just getting your training into such a busy life, didn't you? Well, there's a lot more to think about it. And so what I want to do is try and help a little bit and try and give you a little bit perspective around a couple of components. Two of the main questions that we have.
Matt Dixon 09:08
But before we dive into the questions and the answers, I first need to paint a picture a little bit of you, you the time-starved athlete. And so let's assume that you're motivated, I hope you are. And we're also going to assume that you are committed to the journey. And that's important and that's terrific. But equally, with that you are time-starved You've got a whole bunch of competing demands for your focus and your attention, your family, your friends, travel, logistics, everything that comes from work, it is a big life. And ultimately, when I think about you, you're not just juggling focus. You're also when it comes to your hobby, which ultimately what this is, whatever your sport of choice is, when it comes to your hobby, you actually have in many ways, if you're going they'll be successful, a broader perspective on what performance gains are than maybe a slightly more narrow, elite athlete. And that sounds counterintuitive. Hang on, I'm just doing this as a hobby, but an elite athlete, how can I have a broader perspective? That's because if you're a professional or an elite athlete, it should be relatively narrow in scope. It's not really a pursuit, where you're just chasing better energy in life and a better platform of health. As an elite athlete, you are really chasing one singular thing. And that is world-class performance. You are trying to put all of your energy and resources and focus into becoming the very best athlete that you can be. And you hope that by doing that, you get to compete and even win at the world-class level. That is the life of a world-class athlete.
Matt Dixon 10:59
But that's not me, at least me anymore. And that's not you. That's not us. We are time-starved athletes. And we can actually expand our thinking a little bit. Yes, you want to achieve your goals, and they are important, they deliver a great source of pride and satisfaction, they are motivating. In fact, when you don't feel like getting up at 5 AM, for that bike trainer workout, your goals are the things that can be like, "Come on, Matt, get out of bed, let's do it." So the goals are important. And let's not forget that. But on top of that, I hope that you are also leveraging this journey, as a time-starved athlete, to provide a wonderful platform of performance across greater life: better energy, better health, better focus, better clarity, how you show up as a leader or an employee, what you bring to your family and friends. In other words, it's actually about creating a bigger life. And that's really important. You can even add to it that the journey of athletics and sport is quite sometimes your social outlet. It's really soul-filling, it's a great opportunity for connection with like-minded people. And so your "why" is a little broader. And so we want to approach the question around data, gadgets, analytics, through that lens: time-starved, competing focus, a broader perspective, not that much capacity to really think about this or make this whole journey into a second job. We want simple, repeatable actions that yield performance gains. And that's our focus. Because one of the most common challenges for a time-starved athlete is capacity. Ultimately, the question that I always get is, I've got so many things that I could focus on this blizzard of bullshit, as I like to call it. And so what should I focus on? What's going to give me the return on investment? And I think when it comes to data and analytics, it's about forming an appropriate relationship that falls under your DNA and mind-space as a human being what you really like and enjoy and get a lot out of, and decluttering some of the noise and distraction. Okay, so that's you. I'm also going to add that I am --- building this whole show today, under a very bold assumption, and that is surrounding you on the journey of this hobby. I am assuming that you're not operating within a team structure that is surrounded by a wonderful world-class team of scientists, data analysts, and coaches, all with a singular focus on helping you improve your hobby. That's my bold assumption. Okay.
Matt Dixon 13:56
Just before we hit the first question, I think that it's important that I also provide a little bit of a framework of my thinking about data and analytics and some of my background as well. So as we dig into this little introductory piece, I think that the first thing I would say is, remember that before we talk about me, because we are going to talk about me, but remember to know yourself when you approach this subject. So in other words, if you tend to be a little bit more engineer brained, if we want to call it that, you might actually really love the data side, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that you can lean into it. The only caution if that is your personality trait is to ensure that you remain really, really clear on still leveraging the insights that can actually make meaningful improvement gains. So don't just find yourself diving down into analytics because it is a curious problem to fix without still balancing it with looking to work on your sense of feeling. A few weeks ago we had a Pat Romano on here are Pasquale Romano is his full name, is CEO of ChargePoint who is an engineer, and one of the things that he has done, you can go back and listen to his interview with me around corporate leadership and the role of fitness in sport, but one of the things that he's really done a great job with, while loving data and analytics, is developing a sense of what I call the inner animal. And it took several years, but he really has that perfect balance between using quantitative with qualitative data to find the best recipe for him. So if you are engineer brained, lean into it, love it, it's really fun and enjoyable for you. But don't forget the other side.
Matt Dixon 15:42
On the flip side, let's call it artistic brain. If that sounds a little bit more like you. You are more welcome to build your approach on how your mind best operates, and how you love things. But equal word of caution, I really encourage you not to declare all data and analytics as bad. Because ultimately, in this age, you should and have to utilize some data and analytics if you are going to build a smart performance recipe. And so when you consider yourself either side of that, or somewhere in between, it's important that you go on a journey to really find what's suitable for you.
Matt Dixon 16:24
I also think that we should be really cautious of declaring coaches, data coaches, or he or she hate data. And I sometimes hear that about myself always doesn't believe in data, it's not, it's completely wrong as you'll find out today. It's about building the best recipe for me or any other coach to become an deliver the best and most effective coaching they can under their umbrella. And so what emerges out of all of that, in my perspective, when it comes to data and analytics is there is no right answer here. What it is, is a journey to find the right approach for you, and what you are trying to achieve. And so with that, me addressing a little bit about Matt Dixon doesn't like -- speaking in the third person but -- Matt Dixon doesn't believe in data. It's complete myth. Let me remind you if you don't know, I am officially a scientist in training, I hold a Master's degree in clinical physiology. In fact, I've probably completed more than 1000, blood lactate assessments and hundreds of gas exchange assessments on the metabolic heart, I used to own and utilize one of the earliest generation power meters. In fact, I was part of an organization here in San Francisco, that held the very first indoor power-based bike trainer workout in the country in the US. And it was all anchored around physiological assessments. And so I have always been fascinated with tools and gadgets. And I have leveraged them throughout my coaching. So as I go into today, I think it's important to at least remember that that's my background. But, there's a big but, my coaching has been always focused on trying to drive towards boiling the complicated into the simple and actionable. And so I've always been driven towards providing actions and insights that actually help people. And that has always come with a backbone of education and a journey to help athletes understand intuition how they feel, and then marry it to the data. And so self-management and the development of that inner animal is critically important if you're going to achieve long-term success for yourself. And every single athlete that I work with from the world champions that we've helped go on their journey all the way to folks that are successfully crossing the finish line for the first time. It has always been a balance between gadgets, data, and analytics with intuition, self-management, and how things feel what I can back it up as being labeled the inner animal. Good. Could I benefit from adding a team of scientists and analysts around that? Absolutely. But is it critical? And has it been critical for us achieving the results? Well, no. And in fact, sometimes because we have worked with physiologists that have worked with their athletes, it can be distracting, confusing, and actually confidence eroding sometimes. And so we're going to find it there.
Matt Dixon 19:46
So now, with all of that said folks, let's dive in. Two questions today. We are going to go through two questions with pretty deep answers on both of them. All right. But as you approach, to help you with your filter when approached to any new gadget, any new toy, any source of data or analytics, I would encourage you to retain in your heart one big bold question that you always ask, in fact it's more than one question but let me off the hook on that. Number one, do I understand this? Number two, is it scientifically valid? Or are they just puffing things up in smoke? But most importantly, can I apply the insights into actions that actually yield improvement? In other words, is this gait gadget or tool? Or data or assessment? Is it driving behavior change? Because if it's not, well, you might consider moving that and taking the clutter away from your life, particularly if you're a time-starved athlete.
Matt Dixon 20:57
So with all of that, let's get going fasten your seat belt. Question number one, how do I get the most out of my power meter? Or my pace tracker, my GPS pace tracker in running, while I am training or racing? That's the first question. So goodness me, I find myself talking about data and analytics on the podcast. It's a subject that I often try and steer away from because it's something that is a blizzard of information out there and can become so easy to fall down rabbit holes. But with all that in mind, the best way that I can answer this is first outline, what I see as the biggest mistakes that athletes and coaches make when they get these tools. Fantastic. My new bikes got a power meter on it. Wow, look at this brand new Garmin, it's got the new super duper pacer. It can take average pace, and my pace in flight, ooh it's everything that I've always dreamed of. And the biggest mistake that people make in this is anchored around the word specificity. Oh, now I've got a power meter, I can be really specific. When athletes add these tools into their little repertoire, the answer that they get to themselves is, this is going to provide the route of getting specific, my training can get really precise, it removes all of the guesswork. In fact, just by buying this gadget, I now have training perfection on a platter. It's wonderful. And the common path that athletes then fall into after this is for an athlete to do some form of assessment, I need my training zones, and that's appropriate, they can go and do a lap-based assessment, gas exchange or blood lactate, they could maybe do a field test out on the road, whatever the assessment is, they come out of that assessment with data and information that will prescribe or outline their training zones -- often zone 1,2,3,4,5 that should mirror an increasing intensity and set of physiological stresses -- zone one being very easy zone five being purgatory and all the way through, typically zone four being somewhere around your maximal steady state or your threshold. Most of you guys will appreciate training zones. We leverage them a Purple Patch. And there's nothing wrong with that. Because your training zones provide a framework of your expected power or pace relative to a physiological stimulus. And that can be really beneficial. But then this is where we fall into a colder stack of mistakes. Because with the zones in hand, the athlete then removes all of their thinking.
Matt Dixon 23:50
They just remove it away and they shift to this meter, providing information that is a output of your work that you're doing. But this power meter or piece meter becomes their master. Success is only about hitting the number. nailing the zones, no matter what. Is the session good or bad? Well, it all depends on whether I hit the number. Did I pass or fail? It all depends on I hit the number. In other words, the number the zone leads the rider or runner. Now what's that what this looks like in the real world is if a runner is running on a treadmill, or a biker is riding on a trainer, they may actually structure a workout plug in a pace, plug in a power and just try and keep up no matter what. Outside, they're just riding and just chasing what's shown on the screen. What's my pace? What's my power? And that's the number. Chase chase chase. Good, bad, pass, fail, and so on. And the truth is that really in many ways, this is the reverse of what really good training should be. Let me give you a simple example. And there is actually peer-reviewed science behind what I'm going to tell you, it's going to sound a little bit quirky, a little bit funny, but I want you to really listen here. Imagine if you have gone through lab-based assessment, and you've got your training zones, fantastic. And I prescribed you, I want you to ride your bike for X number of minutes at a zone three effort. Well, you look at your sheet and you know, I've got my training zones, fantastic. Zone three, this is a sustainable effort. It's strong, but it's not breathless, it should feel like, on a 1 to 10 scale, something around a 6 out of 10. It is way in the level of physiological steady state, and you should be relatively conversational. In fact, zone three effort should be where you and I could have a discussion and you would just hope, as I'm prone to do that I would lead the conversation. And you just need to answer but you can answer in full sentences. So that's what zone three should be like. But it doesn't matter. You've got your number. Let's say that right in the heart of zone three, your number is 230 watts. Fantastic. That's what the assessment told me. That's what it is. And that's science, that's precise, that specific, super, plug and play. Just keep up and the job is done. Well, not quite. Because imagine if I held you at that place for zone three, as it supposed to be called, 230 Watts, you're very precise. You're right on it. And I hold you there for two minutes, three minutes. And at the end of that time, I'll hold up a piece of paper and on it is written the Pledge of Allegiance. And I say "Hey, could you just read back the Pledge of Allegiance." Maybe you're not American, and you need maybe a popular children's nursery rhyme like Baa Baa Black Sheep, both about the same word count, by the way. Good, so I read that out and whatever is appropriate for you, you read it back to me. Now you're riding at zone three, it's 230 watts. And that lab assessment told you that that was exactly right. But imagine if you try to read it back to me and you're mumbling on, I pledge allegiance to -- and you're skipping, you are mumbling. You just couldn't talk in full sentences. Well, by definition, by definition, scientifically validated definition, you are above, physiologically, zone three. Now your numbers that you derived from that single-day assessment that you did several weeks about might be sown three. But on the day that I asked you to read back that pledge of allegiance or Baa Baa Black Sheep, due to fatigue accumulation, maybe a lack of sleep, maybe other stresses in life, whatever it might be, by definition, the fact that you can't recite back 30 words seamlessly, you are correlated to your threshold VT1, you are actually zone four.
Matt Dixon 28:12
And this is how a great little cute story of how athletes get into trouble. They chase outcomes instead of chasing intent. And that is a colossal mistake when it comes to training. It's why I'm not a big fan of structured workouts where you pre-program in the numbers. And then you just say plug and play. But it's so convenient. The trainer does it all. For me. It is. And look, we prescribe and allow our athletes to do those sessions. It's just not my preferred method, because it is the numbers leading the athlete. And we like to reverse the relationship a little bit. So that's the big mistake. Instead, we should shift the lens a little bit. I much prefer athletes to leverage these tools a little bit more like a fighter pilot might use the instruments and the graphics on their heads-up display. Here's what I mean by that. Here's a different way to lean into power and pace monitors. The first thing is before you even start your workout, you have a little pause and you read the description. Let's just make it up -- six by five minutes at a strong effort zone 4, good. What's the intent of that session? Now coaches you have a role here? Because you shouldn't be prescribing just the workout 10 by one minute best effort. You should be prescribing and adding a focus either explaining it to the athlete or writing it in the session if that's a more convenient way, but what's the actual focus and intent of the workout? That's the first thing that's really important for you to understand. What are we trying to get out of this? Now it might be very high intensity and you should be claustrophobic by sitting at a high heart rate. And that's the goal. Equally, it should be very low stress, it should be drawing on fat utilization, and improving your economy and by definition should be lower stress or anywhere in between. So the first thing that you want to do is understand the intent. And with that then, you should appreciate the sec -- before you dive into numbers, pace, power, or anything else, you should appreciate good with that intent of the workout, what should that feel like? It might be conversational, it might be very strong and sustainable. But it might require all of my focus this is going to be demanding. Or perhaps it's just purgatory, similar to a workout that I gave tomorrow to this morning, very, very short intervals at extremely high intensity, where it was building on the size, our engine, our VO2 Max. By definition, it is going to be almost scary hard. And so that's what it should feel like. So now you've got the knowledge, the understanding of intent, and intended feeling. And you need to manage those because that becomes important, then you get busy doing the training. And it is through that lens that you can now draw information and insights from the tools that you leverage. And let me paint this because this is important, you are executing the interval or the workout, as intended, and you will be aligning how it should feel. And then you have two potential measures your pace or your power. And that is simply information that is provided you with the output of your work, this is the workload you're producing. You are running at a strong and consistent effort and your pace is X, and that should be correlated to your zones, give or take, depending on the day. Your power should be, give or take this 230 Watts, zone three, that's what we anticipate. Oh, what is my output? And so you've got your power and pace as a measure of output. You also have your perceived effort, how it actually feels -- feels about a 6 or 7 out of 10. Okay, that seems about right. And then finally, you have the potential to add something else that's very useful, which is your heart rate. And your heart rate is a very simple and clear understanding of your physiological strain. So in other words, it's the load or the cost that's occurring internally. So you've got output, power, and pace, you've got internal cost, heart rate, you could actually derive that from blood lactate as well if you were being really sneaky, but most of us don't need to focus on that. And it becomes the interaction of these three, perceived effort and understanding of how it feels with output -- power and pace -- And then in internal cost -- your heart rate. And it is through them that you start to manage and make decisions. And that is a highly potent combination, where you can go over the course of time, you can become smarter about your training, and start to appreciate how your body responds.
Matt Dixon 33:24
And so by realizing this, it's very simply by just viewing the simple fact that your power and pace is just simply information on output, it can open up the gateway to create a much more harmonious and powerful measure for you. Because now you can leverage this information for several ways it can hold you to account to ensure that you go easy enough on the easy days, one of the key and big challenges for many athletes, or you can leverage it for motivation. Hey, this is really, really hard, it should be right up there. So I'm going to chase big power because it's appropriate in this workout, the intent of this workout. You can also use it as a tool to help you understand pacing, particularly early in intervals or maybe early stages of a race. I know that I need to keep a cap on my output because I can't beat physiology. And it's a long day at the office. And so therefore I'm going to have a little bit of a framework to make sure that I don't go too hard too early, it becomes a really useful tool you're measuring output. And then finally, it can provide a little bit of clarity on some of the sensations that you typically will feel during training. So let's dig into that a little bit. Your power is really low. That should be zone three, but goodness me I'm hitting 200 Watts, not 230 What's that about my efforts really hard, but that's my output and my heart rate. I just can't get my heart rate up other than 10 beats lower than normal. Well If effort is high and parent heart rate is low, you're probably tired. You've probably got a little bit of systemic suppression. And so then you can have a decision for yourself of maybe this isn't a day to push through. Maybe my body's going to do better if I back off it. On the flip side, let's say that your power is low, and the effort is high. But you've got a little bit of a higher heart rate here. Well, that's probably a signal actually, that it's not big systemic suppression, but you might be a little dehydrated, maybe you're a little bit overstressed from stuff at work or life, or maybe a lack of sleep, whatever, it might be a little bit of training accumulation. But in this case, you're probably okay to push through the session, carry on through the workload, but afterwards, assess and go, "All right, I've got some signaling here." And that's how you start to go on a journey in a very non-emotional way that you can actually become more pragmatic. So that's the guide and gauge of leveraging these tools, when it comes to in-flight, during training, during racing.
Matt Dixon 36:06
While I've got you, I am going to go down one rabbit hole that I think might be useful for you, I'm gonna give you another way that we commonly use it a Purple Patch, these very same tools to actually use it as a source of insight and education for the athlete. Okay, so beyond post-race or post-training analysis, when you upload the data into any of the training apps that you have, or anything else, let's leverage that. But let's let's just focus on one other component for these tools as well because I think this might be helpful. And to highlight this, I'm going to use the pace in running as a tool. So this is actually a true story that was occurred just last week. An athlete of mine, we'll call her Julie. And I've been trying to help Julie. And one of the things that I've been trying to coach and persuade Julie on is, hey, it might be really smart. If you think about integrating walk breaks into your training and even racing. And Julie, as many athletes do are just having a really hard time wrapping their head around it. Taking a walk break, it just feels like a route of failure, a sign of weakness. And I've talked a lot about this on the show. And so I thought, "You know what, I'm going to do a sneaky thing with Julie here." So a couple of weeks ago, on a middle of the week, on a Wednesday, I said to Julie, "find a loop near your home." A familiar loop as I called it. And it wants to be about six or seven miles, the looping ended up being seven miles for her give or take. And I said I want you to run it around your home. And you're just going to go through with no pauses. Just run around, it's not a time trial, I want it to be relatively flat, a few little rollers are fine. But basically, I want to capture your heart rate. And I want to capture your pace. But I don't want you to look at either. Instead, I just want you to run at a moderate effort when you know you're doing work about a seven out of 10. So something that's very sustainable, so strong but not breathless by any means. And just run the loop. And at the end of the loop, stop the stopwatch. So now we've got your pace over the course you've got the time that it took, you've got your heart rate stress associated with it, remember internal cost, and she did it. And she didn't ask questions, she just did it. I thought it's very funny that he's asking me to do that. But the results was the loop took 62 and a half minutes. Now in old money that's one hour, two minutes, and 30 seconds. The heart rate was about 145 beats per minute, that's where it plateaued. And her legs fine. Great, 62 and a half minutes. We got to one week later, we gave her the same 48 hours of training going into the familiar loop. And I asked her to repeat it. And I double underline this, it's very important. This is not a quest to try and beat your time from last week. This is just gathering insights. And so I asked her to do exactly the same seven out of 10 effort. Don't look at your metrics at all. And what I want you to do is just walk for 20 seconds, every six minutes, every six minutes. Now I knew it was going to take about an hour, so therefore we could expect every six minutes -- I need to do my math medicals -- But it is about 10 walk breaks that you're gonna get. So basically, we talked about it before. And I said look, I'm asking you to do the same loop at the same perceived effort. But you're probably going to get three to three and a half minutes’ worth of walking in here. So what we should anticipate is, and I'm nudged her in the direction here, we should anticipate that this time that seven-mile loop is going to take you about 65 minutes or so, might be a little bit more might be a little less, but let's see how much the delta is. How much slower you go, very leading by the coach here. How much slower do you go on week two by adding walking into it? Okay, that was it. But the key thing is you mustn't look at your pace, you mustn't look at your heart rate, you mustn't look at total time, you can have a stopwatch going, that's just resetting every six minutes, and you are just walking 20 seconds not walking with bags or shopping from Whole Foods, walking with purpose and reset. So she did. It wasn't about total time she just did it. Ran at seven out of 10. Did the loop. Great. She walked 20 seconds every six minutes. The total time for the run: How long? What do you think? 62 and a half minutes was week one, week two? Well, it was just over 60 minutes. She was more than two minutes faster. And that is including her walk breaks, that's not removing the walk break time, it is including her walking in there. And at the end of it, she reported feeling fresher and was faster. And so then I finished it with a question. Do you think that walking strategically is still a sign of weakness? Or maybe do you think it's a sign of a performance enhancement? But I know what Julie wants to do now. And it's a good lesson. And so that's another element of how you can use these tools to help your own understanding for good or for bad, etc. Super.
Matt Dixon 41:21
So that's question number one. Question number two, for me, is a little more simple. But how should you leverage the wearables, the health tracking devices? So let's bundle them all together, perhaps unfairly because they do different things. But let's bundle them together, you've got some of the information drawn off the Apple Watch, you've got the Aura Ring, you've got Whoop. You've got watches that include some of these elements like Garmin and Polar and other watches like that. So I think you understand appreciate sort of the word we're looking at here. And some of the outputs or the information that we're tracking in discussing for the sake of this question is components such as sleep, both in terms of your sleep quality and sleep quantity. You're looking at your heart rate variability (HRV), as you'll see it in a lot of these. And that's simply what heart rate variability is the variation in time interval between your heartbeats, okay, so that actually can provide us insight into your current or future health conditions. And shifts indicate over time, a state of potential accumulation of strain or stresses may be insights into a lack of recovery. So HRV is actually a tool that many coaches like to leverage. And it's valid, it's really insightful. So HRV is number two, we talked about sleep already. resting heart rate and temperature wakeup. That's a couple of interesting ones. And then more broadly, we have what's commonly referred to as your readiness score, your recovery score, and my in the green or in the red, am I able to train or not?
Matt Dixon 43:02
So the question is, are these tools useful? And I think the answer to that is yes, they really can be as long as they are viewed through the right lens. When I actually consider these types of wearables, I tend to lean into a couple of phrases. Number one - habit creation. Number two - longitudinal lessons and insights. So those are the way that we think about that. If you choose to go out and get an Aura Ring or a Whoop band or look at some of the information that comes off of your watches, and you decide to utilize these tools, you better be able to get out of the weeds on the day to day basis and come up for a more broader perspective. I always think about coaching as needing the misneeded requirement to go down the tee, very, very deep into the weeds, but most importantly, be able to come up and have perspective, the broader horizontal shape of the tee to have vision across at the higher level. And when we think about these tools, that's really the place sitting with a broader higher level perspective. In other words, --- folks tend to get into the weeds with these tools, and it's detrimental. I woke up at 2 am and I'm really bummed because I'm trying to beat my sleep score. I better not move my wrist. Otherwise, it's going to know that I'm awake and my sleep score is gonna go down and it's plummet. It's pass, fail. That can be actually elevating in stress. The analytics of it can become a monkey on the back. And so that's not the right mindset. And the second component where I think athletes run into trouble with these is actually viewing the output that you get on a day-to-day basis as the definitive guide, similar to a power and pace meter that we talked about, the master where they are going to take tell you, yes or no, whether or not you are fit to train. It can be insightful, some of the information to add into the context of the conversation, but these are never going to give you information that is pass, fail, yes or no.
Matt Dixon 45:16
So we need to erase the mindset a little bit. In fact, let's establish the right mindset. And I'm going to tell you the two most common benefits of leveraging at something like the Aura Ring. The most common pieces of education that we get out of them emerge for many, many folks after just a few weeks or a month of use, do you know what they are? The first is a reality check. And that is a bold reality check, when they actually track and look back after a month or so, and say, goodness me, those are my actual and real trends on sleep quality and quantity. And the vast majority of folks that I work with, particularly the time-starved look and realize that they sleep way less than they imagined. And so that can be really powerful. Because so many people will always declare I sleep great, I'm fine. And then they look at the actual quantifiable data and go, my reality is not quite the same as my perception. So that's the first insight that can be really insightful. And of course, that can be used on an ongoing basis, not down to the day-to-day level, but the train level.
Matt Dixon 46:32
The second, that's the most common education and insight that we get is the absolutely bold, physiological negative impact that alcohol has on components such as state of recovery, quality of sleep, and readiness. Wow, just a small amount of alcohol, and look, I'm English, I love my beer, but alcohol has a huge impact on your quality and your ability to recover. And these two lessons are fantastic, because I see them directly leading to habit change, just from these insights, and so I think that alone is worth the price of admission on these tools. It's also no wonder why across the states right now, and I think in the Western world, we are seeing an absolute emergence of the popularity of nonalcoholic beers, wine, and even mocktails, as they like to call them here. They're absolutely exploding in popularity. And I think that some of the lessons that we're getting from these tools is driving that popularity.
Matt Dixon 47:37
Beyond that, I think these tools are useful as long-term insight providers if you want to call it nothing else. And so I think that it helps with the information to enable you as an athlete to make smart decisions within context of the whole puzzle. Let's give you an example. HRV, heart rate variability. That becomes really high value, if, if you track over the long term. So it's not a reaction to a day, you track over the long term, and you start to understand your own personal trends and insights. And so HRV can be a great decision-maker. Because if you see, after consistent training, your HRV plummet, that's a sure signal that your body is overstressed. And that doesn't mean you shouldn't train, but it should make you pause, and reflect and come up a level and say, "Is this the time to hit the heart intervals that I had planned? Or maybe should I focus on a little bit of easier training, and wait till tomorrow? Is this suppression anticipated or unanticipated? What has caused it?" And so it's going to help you with your big-picture thinking. And so that becomes really useful. Very similar as well, we think about suppressed heart rate. Maybe your heart rate or temperature might show up as elevated temperature, suppressed heart rate, maybe there's a little bug going on in there, or maybe you've got a little bit of accumulation of fatigue. Again, it doesn't mean you shouldn't go forward. But it should cause you to pause, reflect and make a smart decision within context of all of the inputs that have maybe gone into that. And readiness scores, recovery scores. I would say that those are conversation starters. At best. How do I feel is this fatigue anticipated is what my data my Aura Ring or my Whoop Band or my Garmin, is what it's telling me actually true and relative to what I would anticipate at this time? And just like everything else, HRV and heart rate, it's insights to lead into your conversation and your decision-making metrics. And that's how you build a really robust relationship with these.
Matt Dixon 49:55
What that all adds up to is the quantifiable metrics are incredibly useful, and they can help you track, but they shouldn't be shackles. Oh, one last thing. If you're a training athlete, you get my license today to completely ignore the recovery score post workouts. That, "oh, well done, you finished the intervals, now take two days off and easy." These Garmin watches that give you, "Hey you need some recovery from now on out, don't do anything hard for 48 hours", just ignore it. Because the truth is the technology isn't quite there yet. It's improving, and it's mostly improving because you are their guinea pigs. They are drawing your data and insights and the other millions of people using these devices and getting smarter. So it will in likelihood in a few years time. Get to a place where that can be insightful, but right now just build it on smart habits, and not much more.
Matt Dixon 50:59
So one of my final piece today, guys, if you had one piece of data that I could say you should always have that we should all leverage. What should it be? Is it a gadget? Is it a tool? No, it's a question. Here's the one thing that all of us should always do. Get out of bed, you wake up, and maybe go to the bathroom, you have a big glass of water. That's the first thing you should do. You get the sunlight or lights in your in your living room or kitchen on and you tell the brain you're ready. And then you say, "How do I feel?" That's my first piece of data. And guess what this is peer-reviewed. This is scientifically relevant and is highly insightful. It is a grounding tool and a measuring stick that you get to align the other pieces of data with. "How am I feeling?" That qualitative question is massively important. And the interesting thing is that the vast majority of people that I work with seldom pause and reflect, including the professionals. We used to battle with our pros. Pause, reflect, how do I feel? And by making this a habit, you start to develop what it's called, Oh, yeah, Self Awareness. And you allow then the quantitative data to take flight to have meaning. And that can drive the answer to the question, "Is this pushing behavior change?" I hope that helps guys. You can see it's a big world of data and analytics out there. But I encourage you to build your relationship. Just don't get owned by it. Don't get shackled, and allow it to be liberating in its insights. And most importantly, have fun on the journey. We'll see you next time.
Matt Dixon 52:49
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 at 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
athlete, insights, training, analytics, data, zone, starved, heart rate, pace, leverage, tools, power, workout, bit, journey, important, coaches, feel, physiological, minutes