Episode 257: Leveraging Indoor Training to Optimize Your Performance
Follow the Purple Patch Podcast at:
APPLE PODCASTS - SPOTIFY- AMAZON MUSIC - GOOGLE PODCASTS - YOUTUBE
With record rain and snowfall across most of the United States, there seems to be no better time to fix our lens on the strategic application of indoor training in your performance journey.
“Indoor training isn't about just replicating your outdoor sessions into a less favorable environment. It's specifically thinking about what is the appropriate training to do while you're in this environment, and also connecting that training to what you are going to be doing outdoors.” (26:54)
In this episode of the Purple Patch Podcast, IRONMAN Master Coach Matt Dixon covers indoor training techniques you can use every winter to help set yourself up for success. Matt highlights 3 case studies of real, time-starved, Purple Patch athletes, all with different skill levels and aspirations, who leveraged their indoor training to build a foundation for their performance.
The athletes’ stories provide examples of thinking outside of the box to focus on specific areas of your performance you can build on for the season ahead.
“What you do in the winter, in the indoor training is the bedrock for the big performance gain potential that comes in the six months following. But it's not about just piling on fitness. It's about specificity.” (28:02)
The case studies emphasize the benefits of optimizing indoor training as well as the pragmatic approach each athlete used to emerge with amplified athletic performance, improved health, and a refocused mindset aimed at each of their individual pursuits.
Matt also shares details on how you can leverage Purple Patch resources in your own performance journey either remotely or in person via the Purple Patch Performance Center.
Episode Timestamps
00:00 - 3:29 - Welcome and Episode Introduction
03:37 - 8:15 - Matt's News-ings
8:22 - 55:48 - The Meat and Potatoes - Episode 257: Leveraging Indoor Training to Optimize Your Performance
Purple Patch Video Podcast and More
Free Webinar - Maximize Your 70.3 or IRONMAN Performance as a Time-Starved Athlete
The Purple Patch Center is Open - Learn More and Schedule a Visit
Purple Patch Coaching Consultation
Free Webinar - Maximize Your 70.3 or IRONMAN Performance as a Time-Starved Athlete
Purple Patch Coaching Consultation
Purple Patch and Episode Resources
This episode is sponsored by our collaboration with INSIDE TRACKER. Inside Tracker and Purple Patch - Receive 20% off their services with code: PURPLEPATCHPRO20
Ask Matt Anything - Leave a voicemail question for Matt
Learn more about Purple Patch Squad High-Performance Training Program
Join Bike Squad - Don’t just exercise and work out; learn to train with our structured online cycling program
Join Run Squad - Increase your running performance through our progressive, multi-sport approach to running
Learn more about Purple Patch Fully Customized 1:1 Coaching
Learn more about Purple Patch Strength Programming
Stay Up-to-Date with Purple Patch News and Events
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 00:24
Today's episode is all about case studies. And we're going to investigate three different athletes that couldn't be further apart in both their performance levels, as well as their aspirations and goals. But there are a couple of things that unite these athletes. The first is a desire to improve something that is the centerpiece of everything that anchors an athlete to Purple Patch. But the second is all three of these athletes, despite disparaging goals and aspirations, all three of these athletes leverage the insights from InsideTracker. By assessing their biometrics and taking the advice and applying it to their performance journey. All three of these athletes were successful in building a better platform of health. And I believe it was integral to them actually amplifying the results from the effort that they put in as we will dig into the race show. And the good news is that you can leverage the insights from the team at InsideTracker very simply, on your own. You don't even need to be a Purple Patch athlete. All you need to do is head to insidetracker.com/purple patch, that's insidetracker.com/purple patch. And we even have a very fancy code for you Purple Patch Pro 20, that's Purple Patch Pro two, zero, and that gives you 20% off everything at the store. Of course, if you'd like to combine this with some consultation from us at Purple Patch, simply reach out to us info@PurplePatchfitness.com and we would be delighted to help you filter through your results and insights. All right, that's enough. For me, it's a crack today, the subject is all-around inside and indoor training. And it all is applied through case studies. A lot of fun, enjoy the show.
Matt Dixon 02:13
And welcome to the Purple Patch podcast as ever, your host, Matt Dixon, and join hands with me, folks, we are still immersed in winter, at least up here we are. We've had record-setting snow and rain in Southern California. We had just last week in my little venture to Montana minus 50 degree Windchill. And I know that there was crazy ice and snow sweeping across the US. I mean, goodness me some friends in Minneapolis had more than 10 inches of snow in 12 hours. That is a whole big dumping. And so it seems like a timely opportunity for me to do a show on indoor training. How do you optimize it? Well, guess what? Today, we're going to skip the theory. Instead, what I want to do is something that I love to do on the show, but don't get the opportunity too too often. And that's to highlight three case studies, a very real Purple Patch athletes that have spent the last month optimizing their indoor training and setting themselves up for big gains ahead. Now, it's not too late for you to learn and apply these principles, especially if you're a time-starved athlete. But before we get into the three athletes, and they shall well be given some synthetic names just so that we can protect their real identity. But before we dig in, why don't we do Matt's News-ings?
Matt Dixon 03:37
Yes, folks, Matt's News-ings. And first opportunity, I want to update you on the Purple Patch Performance Center, our little home that I'm in right now in San Francisco, because we're a couple of months in from us in our real opening. And it's been one heck of a ride so far, it's a lot of fun. And you're going to hear some case studies today of prime examples of folks that have leveraged the services center for their own benefits. Of course, you don't have to be at the center to apply the principles of that case study. But I thought it was quite timely to just have a little bit of a circle around and give you some insights into how we're doing here, where I can tell you it's been pretty sparkling so far in the first couple of months. Here are a few highlights and observations that as the head coach I have observed.
Matt Dixon 04:23
The first is we are very much social beings. I talked a lot about this through the pandemic. But I have to say it is incredibly nice and fulfilling, and everyone else that's here also says it, to be in person together. It's just a different environment, a great connection. And in fact, that applies for the folks that are actually coming into the center, but also the folks that are plugging in remotely via our video coaching. And we have athletes on any session that are from Mexico, Singapore, London, even my brother's joining New York, Kansas, but having a social connection. It is even more empowering than I thought it might be.
Matt Dixon 05:04
And I would also add to that a second component that the folks that are in person in San Francisco are absolutely feeling the benefit from the in-person coaching, whether it's in the bike sessions, the strength training, or our new and highly popular treadmill and strength circuit classes, it is incredibly beneficial to get hands-on coaching, to course correct your form, your execution of the session, so that it's as intended, and of course, everything that's infused with accountability. So that becomes really empowering. There's nothing like in-person coaching, of course.
Matt Dixon 05:40
The third element that really sparked up my interest is the really broad range of ability level, but also age, we've had 17-year-olds actively participating sessions, and many folks over 70 years of age and everything in between. And the common denominator is there's just simply not an environment that allows really any ego. We're going to strip you down to speed pretty quickly if you come in with the high-testosterone Gold's Gym approach. Instead, it's a commitment from us, but also participants, guests, and people that are regulars here at the center, to really commit to support improvement, and trying to bring everybody up.
Matt Dixon 06:22
And that makes it my fourth point, really feel like home. This is anything is the antithesis of a gym-like experience. It's highly professional, it is a performance center, but through the heartbeat of the center is coaching. And so as you walk in here, you might be surprised there's not even a front desk, there's no one sitting there, you come in and is your place. We are open to everyone in San Francisco, we also have the opportunity for folks to dial in remotely and that's special. And I absolutely love that I even love welcoming folks that decide to fly in for either business or other travel, and come and spend the day with us at the center. And so today, I just want to bubble that backup and say look, head to the website, go to the center tab, check out the services. And if you'd like a custom package for yourself or even your team, maybe your business wants to get involved, we can build it out for you custom, all you need to do is reach out to info@PurplePatchfitness.com. And we'd be delighted to see how we can help. After this, I'm off to record. And I'm going to lead a 18-person coach bike session for an executive team, that is going to be a lot of fun, it's gonna be followed up with a nice powwow, a bit of a q&a around performance and work and life. And of course, we'll have some snacky snacks along the way. So there's lots of opportunities here at the center. And if you’re bay area based, hey, come and visit and share with those who you think might enjoy. It's a big addition to the Purple Patch program. And I want to give you that personal invitation. If you want to join your first session, your first class, it's on me, I'll pay for you come and welcome it. We're going to use, abuse, and make it a lot of fun. All right, always good. With that, Barry, I'm going to let your fingers recover a little bit, we are going to skip word of the week because I want to go right into the meat and potatoes.
Matt Dixon 08:22
Yes, folks, the meat and potatoes, and today it's a little bit of storytime, you can pop on your pajamas, you can get a nice warm beverage, you can come and sit on my knee, don't feel uncomfortable. These are stories of how to leverage indoor training to optimize your performance, no matter what your focus, passion, or goals are. And each of the case studies that we're gonna go through today are actually pulled from the approaches and experience of real Purple Patch athletes. Now I should preface this one of the case studies I decided to pull from winter 2022. The other two are just over the last few months. So in other words, the winter months of 2023. And with all of the case studies, I really like to do it in a very similar format.
Matt Dixon 09:05
The first is a profile of the athlete, then we're going to dig in and talk about their challenge or their prior approach or give a landscape of where they're at right now. And then a little bit of a intervention, what we're thinking of doing with the diagnostic side of it. And then of course any outcomes or lessons that come with it so that you can hopefully learn and apply to your own journey because that's the spirit. And so what we're going to do, we've got three athletes, and we're going to kick off. And one thing I want you to be aware of is each one of these athletes are really, really different. So fasten your seat belt. Stay tuned because we're going to dig into a very different profile for each of the athlete and we are starting with Neil who is a triathlete. Welcome to the hot seat, Neil, you are a case study at the Purple Patch podcast number one, and this is a should preface our 2022 case study.
Matt Dixon 09:59
It was important I drew this case study from last year because we really have a good runway of results that emerged from what I believe the actions of what Neil took over the course of last winter. And his season of racing, because we're discussing racing. So I feel like that's a little bit more accessible. So you can get a little bit of an insight into the reward that comes from the effort that Neil put in. All right. So let's dig in. Let's talk about Neil as an athlete, so he's 34 years of age. He is a committed age-group triathlete. So this is an athlete, he's probably been doing triathlons for four or five years now. He's highly committed. His busy lives in the Midwest of the US, has a job in electrical engineering. So successful, busy time-starved athlete and his big goal and aspirations were to qualify to the Ironman 70.3 worlds, he wasn't an Ironman athlete, more of a Ironman 70.3 athlete or half Ironman going to progress to Ironman over the course of this year and next year, but the case studies anchored more around half Ironman not that important in the overall scope of things. And his big goal beyond qualifying as he really wanted to move up the ranks in the course of his racing. He was subject at the start of 2022 and the 2021 season, he was a mid-pack athlete, give or take about five and a half hours, but up to six hours in a typical race. And his profile across swimming, cycling, and running: He was a very strong runner, but certainly a weaker swimmer, and also a weaker cyclist. So he's one of these guys that I used to not enjoy racing, he was way back in history and then he would slowly creep up on me and pass. But that was the profile. And of course, we wanted to evolve Neil's performance level across Yes, the run to get it even stronger, but of course, amplify the swim and bike performance. As a personality, electrical engineer, he was very, very metrics focused. And he tended to be obsessed, I would say on a week-to-week basis over the course of his prior years on accumulating weekly hours. And the second obsession was FTP boost, I must chase my maximal steady state, I need to raise my FTP, my functional threshold, the power that I can hold for a maximum sustainable effort. And that was a big element for him. It really - the Pass Fail measurement of "am I improving, is my FTP getting better." So he was very metrics process, tracing a lot of mileage, FTP boosting was the outcome goal. And he also tended to deploy a lot of confidence-building miles, the more miles I can get, I'm going to be fit enough to take my performance to the next level, which we know from this show could be true, but could also be an athlete's undoing.
Matt Dixon 12:57
So let's dig into my challenge and diagnostic of his situation. And it's probably not rocket science for you guys that have been listening to the show for a long time. Neil joined Purple Patch, and he actually got on to our squad program. So he's not individually coached, he came on to our slightly more autonomous program that delivers a bunch of education, a bunch of support via the community, but also options to have standing consultations with one of our coaching team. And, and he was really happy with the more autonomous approach. But he decided to kick off his journey with a consultation with me because he really felt like he wanted to get going on the right foot and set up a framework of his approach. And and I think that was actually really smart. So I decided to spend an hour with Neil. And, and in fact, it ended up being 90 minutes. So I decided to spend a little bit more time with him because firstly, I could see how dedicated he was, and I really wanted to help him. But we need to go into the weeds a little bit. And I'll never forget about halfway through that initial consultation where we were planning the program. We were thinking about the season and where he needed to apply specific focus. I said something that ruffled his feathers, and it was something along the lines of Neil look, I can see great opportunity for growth and improvement. Certainly, nothing there to ruffle feathers, I would say. But here came the but. But Neil, I'm not sure if you have the courage, or the capacity to actually commit to the strength of approach. Now I saw him or felt him prickle over the Zoom call. And guess what? I was completely wrong about this young man. He not only did he evolve and change he did it bravely and really jumping in with two feet. So let's dig into what I saw as the big gaps in his approach.
Matt Dixon 14:59
The first very simply is he had never committed to strength training. He believed in its value number one, but due to his age, I think he had a almost subconscious belief that he could get away without doing it. And so yeah, I believe in strength, but I'm just not going to do it. And and that's actually something that I can have a lot of empathy for, I've fallen into that trap a little bit. Strength is wonderful for everyone. But do I really need to do it? And so Neil didn't commit to strength. The second component is how he had spent his prior winter months. Over the course of the price seasons, he spent almost all of his winter training, mostly indoors living in the Midwest, trying to, quote build his base. So he just did hours and hours of low-intensity riding on the trainer. And not all of that is wasted time of course, there is benefits to it. But I saw some flaws in the approach that we'll get to. He also chased power gains when he was sitting inside on his trainer. But one thing that he admitted to never thinking about was riding with really good posture, thinking about his pedal stroke, or how his indoor training would actually apply to skill development and course terrain outside. So he just saw it simply as a tool to build physiology, quite a narrow scope, and never thought about what I'm doing inside, how I'm sitting on the bike, how I'm pedaling, how I'm thinking about the sessions, should align to what I'm doing outside. So it was a very narrow scope in mindset. I'm looking to build miles, I'm looking to boost power. And it's just a tool to build physiology. And I think it goes way beyond that. And we'll get into that in a couple of seconds. And then the final thing that was the big gap is the truth is Neil just didn't like swimming very much. And so he tended to swim once or twice a week, at most, he much preferred to load up on his strength where he still enjoyed it, it was soul-filling.
Matt Dixon 17:00
So we piled on the running miles swam once, maybe twice if I'm being generous, and he always swim alone. And so that was obviously a big gap in the overall approach. Now in truth, when I assessed Neil, we decided to park some of the components that were also flaws around sleep, daily eating, and more, and we address those. But that's not for this case study where the focus of the show is around indoor training. So for the sake of this, I'm going to bypass on the habit side of stuff and just talk about indoor train. Let's now go to intervention. So what did we do with Neil, how did we set it up and frame him? Well, he began on our squad program in December 2021. So this was all about setting up last year. And here were my asks, number one, let's talk about the bike. I wanted two of his indoor workouts to be very low-stress. And we tended not to ride any more than at the most two hours in a single session. And it was very, very low stress zone one or zone two conversational. 3, 4, 5 out of 10 effort, up to two hours most of the time 60 to 90 minutes, weekend sometimes two hours, and he was seldom lucky to get outside. So two of the workouts continued with that low-intensity work. Bada bing. But then here comes the first real shift. The other two rides that he did, because he tended to ride four days a week or four times a week, the other two workouts that he did, he committed to a mix of live and on-demand, Purple Patch coaching. So our video-based coaching that delivered 60-minute workouts only sometimes we had an add-on an extra 10 or 15 minutes, but 60-minute workouts were the norm that was a mix of very low cadence, high torque pedaling. So sitting at what we call strength endurance, big gear 45, 50, 55 up to 60 revolutions per minute at a demanding output. Zone three to zone four, even upper zone four so above his maximal steady state. So that was one component, one big session, the other video-based workout a week, either live with me if he could do it on his schedule or on the on-demand video sessions. He did short very high intensity and he asked me how hard should it be and I said your back teeth should fall out. Very, very demanding, close to maximal heart rate, very short Intensity intervals. Somewhere between 20 seconds to 40 seconds, minimal recovery, about 50% recovery time on most of the intervals. So very demanding short, high-intensity stuff. That was the cycling that we asked him to do over the course of the whole winter, his second big ask was a commitment to really think about his cycling with an obsession on form, posture and habits that would apply outside. Now we won't go into what all of those are. But I asked him not to just do the sessions, but do them with intent, focus on establishing really good posture, really supple upper body, quiet upper body that was really, really poetic, make him look like he belonged to his bicycle, and then work through a series of pedal strokes that he could deploy relative to what the environment or terrain was. And that was an education for him over the course of the whole winter. That was super. And as we did that, we also infused through the video coaching a lot of terrain management skills. So applying intervals, a lot of it low cadence work or high intensity with good posture, and then a mix of terrain that we would simulate that was infused via the education on our video coaching. Super. And so he had high expectations, he had a good amount of accountability. And he got feedback because he could actually attend my sessions live, albeit remotely via video, and I could see him coaching. So that was super. So that was the bike that we really anchored.
Matt Dixon 21:20
The second big bucket was strength and mobility. And I asked him to do two sessions a week, where he would remove a couple of short runs and replace them with 30 minutes of higher-load strength work. So quite demanding a lot of squats, deadlifts, lunges, form-focused but higher load, and then a series of 5 to 15-minute mobility sessions. A lot of working on core, stability, joint mobility, stuff that he could basically do in front of the TV. And each one of those shorter sessions, the two main strength sessions, he was, quote, allowed to add a 10 or 15-minute run, but it wasn't a focus run. And he wanted that for his soul and for enjoyment and for a bit of tissue resilience. And then finally, I asked him to dive in literally, he had two specific workouts that he performed alone in the swim from Purple Patch. And then I got him to join a swim group and he swam two to three more times in a week in group bay swims. And I said, Look, you need to join because (A) you don't naturally love swimming, and you spend way too much time alone lollygagging around in solo swims. And I really believe that the group swim would help his enjoyment, set up an environment of challenge where he would have to chase faster swimmers. And even with a slight drop in specificity, the group dynamics, the enjoyment, the challenge, would more than makeup for it. Oh, and Neil also did a whole bunch of short, high-intensity intervals. So what did that mean, with the rest of his training? Well, his running was much easier, much lighter. But we ended up having a focus around frequency. Running almost every day, but the vast majority of it been easy and relatively short. The only specific run training he did all winter was once a week, we did a strength-based treadmill session, working on varying grades going uphill promoting good form and posture, sometimes transferring that to faster running on the flats coming off the grade, just for a little bit of motor programming, as we like to call it. The rest of the running easy soul-filling, low mental, cognitive, and of course, physiological stress. Really, really good. final component. I said, Don't worry about your FTP, just get busy doing this really well. I want you to build consistency. I want you to build a fabric of training where you can show up and be good for the higher demand sessions though short intensity sessions. And I couldn't care less how many hours you do. But I do know it's going to be a lot less than the 18 to 20 hours that you were squeezing in over the course of the last couple of winters. Then the question is what were the results for Neil? Well, it's very simple, short term, two things occurred. He hit May time early June so mid to late spring - He hit that time of the season where for many athletes, fatigue really starts to show up if they've been going hammer and tongs all winter, he showed up for the first year ever fresh emotionally and fresh physically. He was also significantly faster in the swim. Amazing what happens when you commit to four or five swims a week, isn't it? And he had get this his highest FTP Functional Threshold ever. And that's not surprising he kept stop just chasing mile accumulation and started to do some really high-intensity work in support of the low-intensity, but - and this is the but - when I asked him at this time because I decided to check in and by memory, it was about May 15. He was really worried with the most common question that we get. Am I fit enough? His baseline fitness - he was worried. And that's because Neal hadn't had the validation from the miles and hours that he typically did in prior years. So while he was fresh, he still had the lingering doubt. Am I fit enough? Well, let's now fast forward to the end of the season just a couple of months ago, December, because it was his last race of the year. Faster than his PR. Yes, thank you, Mrs. Jenkins. 70 minutes faster. He improved 70 minutes over the course of a half Ironman. That's getting quite good by the way - 4 hours and 20 minutes. He of course got the qualification to Ironman 70.3 World Championships. But on top of that, it was the first season that he had, that he remained injury-free, and motivation stayed stable. He was fresh and excited. But you know what's even better, the results were great. But as he finished the year, he has a whole group of friends. And those friends were formed out of Neil getting out of the shackles of solo, "I mustn't lose specificity," to getting into the benefits of being a part of a community, in this case, a swimming community. And he even enjoys, and he might not admit it if you ask him, but he even enjoys swimming. Who'd of thunk it aye? And so out of that the lessons, well look. The power of strength training, it was there, he remained with strength a year-round.
Matt Dixon 26:51
And I think that the key thing though is indoor training isn't about just replicating your outdoor sessions into a less favorable environment. It's specifically thinking about what is the appropriate training to do while you're in this environment, and also connecting that training to what you are going to be doing outdoors. And that's the big miss for many people. Neil had the courage to evolve and absolutely reaped the benefits from it. I will add a strong belief, so many observations. And this is a clear account of an example as I can possibly say as well. When an athlete commits to swimming, particularly over the course of the winter months, where we're not trying to chase hours and hours and hours of swimming mileage, or riding and biking mileage. And we're less obsessed with that. Whenever an athlete commits to swimming, they tend to get faster at swimming, but they also get better as an athlete. And I feel like Neil's commitment was a catalyst. And so it is true. What you do in the winter, in the indoor training is the bedrock for the big performance gain potential that comes in the six months following. But it's not about just piling on fitness. It's about specificity. And that is what anchors it.
Matt Dixon 28:19
All right, so with that, let's shift gears. Let's discuss our second athlete. And I promise you it couldn't be more different. Nina, this a very different situation. I'm going to give you the profile of Nina. And let me just start here. Nina is not a self-declared athlete, although, at Purple Patch, we believe everybody is an athlete. But Nina would be, Nope, I'm not an athlete. She's a mom of two. She's based in the Bay Area. And she struggled to build any consistency of exercise over the last few years. Just in and out, trying different things, group fitness, nothing seems to stick. In fact, Nina would declare far from being an athlete, "I hate exercise. I believe in the benefit, but there is no joy to this suffering." She is time-starved and she's cycled through so many local group fitness options, personal trainers, and more. And the truth is that she hated all of it. And the whole situation was amplified, as I chatted to Nina in the fall of last year, because she's navigating perimenopause and all of the symptoms that come out of it such as weight gain, sleep disruption, mood issues, fatigue, so many components that, unfortunately, are less spoken about and misunderstood but a part of a transition, almost a second puberty for all women. And Nina was right in the heart of this. And so here we have someone that says I understand and appreciate the benefits of exercise, I just don't like to exercise and it's horrible. I don't want to do it. But I need to get through and I need to change and I want to feel better. And so my job was to try and help Nina build many victories and be successful, but hopefully, find enjoyment in the process. And I knew it wasn't gonna be easy. So when we chatted together in the diagnostics, it was clear that Nina understood that it was healthy. But she had never experienced that powerful boast that so many of you guys listening would appreciate. And that's that, when you get that consistency, there is almost a metamorphosis that occurs, where you just start performing at a better level, you feel better, you act better, confidence starts to emerge. And you start to view exercise as a non-negotiable in your life. It makes you a better person, but Nina had never experienced that. So it's very difficult for someone to really grasp if most of their experiences up to this point had been negative. And I think that there were two things when we dug into her prior experiences that really bubbled up consistently for Nina. The first is that she tended to fall into either the wrong culture of exercise or training, a lot of environments that were testosterone-infused, a lot of egotistical, a lot of image-focused side of components. And of course, that's not very welcoming. These aren't my people. And then a second common component was a real misalignment in challenge. It was either way too demanding for her current state. So she felt like a failure. Or ironically, too much of as Nina describe it, a bit of a coffee morning, I showed up to exercise. But what's the point, hardly did anything. I didn't get any of the value, the buzz, and the endorphins, it was just a bit of hard work and a social matter. Of course, that's not going to yield any long-term success. A second big challenge for her prior exercise is it wasn't gelling together in a structured and progressive format. It was all à la carte. And so it's no wonder that Nina felt like a pinball. She wasn't going in a direction. She didn't have a structure or a goal, or a lightning rod. In fact, athletes that identify em, we understand that goals and targets, and races are really valuable to structure and hang the program around. But if you're just exercising because you know it's healthy, and then you become like a pinball. And the first little distraction or setback, it's really easy just to put it aside. And then finally, Nina clearly had never had any genuine coaching or feedback. Go and do an exercise program, go and do a personal training, but not really getting a high degree of accountability, support, and feedback. And so I felt like Nina would really benefit from some structure, progression, and coaching. So let's dive into the intervention.
Matt Dixon 33:00
Well, the first thing I'll say is that the key with working with someone like Nina is to ensure that she can buy in, at least short term, and say, you need to deploy an athlete's mindset. I realized that you don't identify as an athlete. And I also can appreciate that you don't want to be competitive, but I want you to actually deploy an athletic mindset. And it's important that you think in terms of an athlete.
Matt Dixon 33:31
The second component that was really important for me, is to try and meet Nina or the athlete where she was at the time. In other words, we couldn't be too demanding. And we couldn't also be soft. Instead, we needed to build many victories, make it challenging, but ensure that she was successful. Because if one day, and the next day, and the next day, she wasn't just desperately hanging on to the rope and failing, but instead just making half a step forward, it could start to build a snowball effect of validation. And that's really, really important.
Matt Dixon 34:10
With that, the third element for her to be successful, particularly with her history of trying things and giving up was to hold to account. So in other words, outline expectations and a commitment to show up. Nina, I don't want you to worry about how you feel. I need a commitment for six weeks, you are going to be here twice a week for six weeks, a natural commitment. And if you're not showing up, you're going to text me and tell me why. Accountability for, in a supportive sense, but needed to happen for this to occur. And I believe that if I could get over six weeks with Nina, and then we could start to see a catalyst for real change.
Matt Dixon 34:52
And the final component was really two things. With all of that accountability and structure. We also need to make sure it was social. Because I believe that the real success for Nina wasn't going to come from me as a coach, it was going to come from the group accountability and support. Because ultimately, that is nearly always more powerful than anything an individual coach can do. So immerse in a group setting, while we're tailoring for her specific needs, so that she can feel successful, but also feel like she's gonna let someone down if she doesn't show up. We removed all pressure of outcomes. Instead, we just said, look, it's not about getting stronger, fitter, faster. It's not even about shifting body composition. It's about habit creation, integrating into your life, and replacing complexity with simplicity, don't worry about the big size of the project. Let's just get going.
Matt Dixon 35:53
So what did we do with Nina for the training side of stuff? Well, I had a commit to two main things in a week number one, twice weekly, taking part in the Purple Patch strength sessions, the group session. So a small group about five or six athletes, one coach, a lot of feedback and guidance enabled us to open up a structured and progressive series of sessions that could be personalized within the small group. So that the stronger athletes weren't held back while Nina was doing stuff that was appropriate for her. I wanted them to be challenging, but also enable her to be successful. And those sessions were really key because it had her show up at the center. And then once a week, progressing now to twice a week she also did strength and treadmill circuits. And you think straightaway, goodness me throw in a treadmill circuit at it. And straightaway Nina
Matt Dixon 36:44
had the same thing. "I can't do that. You're silly. You're crazy." But that was incorrect because while she said I can't do it, I don't run. The good news is Nina, you didn't have to run. Because just a couple of weeks after she got kickstarted, we went into the treadmill on and run circuits. And Nina was there walking on grades in a series of intervals. Intervals been really important. For her, high demand, quite high intensity, but on a grade walking, it really protected her joints while giving the physiological stimulus. For a pure runner. These would have been easy. For Nina it was high-intensity and demanding, but with low low injury risk. Now funnily enough in the sessions I talked earlier about the Purple Patch center, we had a young lad 38 years of age or so -- gym, running five-minute miles by 30 Miles very, very fast. Next to her was Anton 70-year-old AARP anarchists running 10 to 12-minute mile pace. And there was Nina united all by a vision of success. Now as we did these three or four sessions a week, that became the anchor point, the one thing that Nina did do outside was go for walks in a neighborhood. And that got her some sunlight, she had a bit of flexibility in the day to do it. It got her to be outside in the fresh air and of course, a little bit of tissue resilience, a little bit of substrate or energy utilization or good. So what were the results for Nina? Well, pretty simple. And I think this is important because Purple Patch and in fact, the athletic journey globally, even beyond Purple Patch, isn't all about PRs and finish places, those are great. But here's something inspiring, at least to me, and I hope it is to you, let's talk about Nina now three months in. And this is important. Right now, for the first time in years, Nina can walk up flights and flights of stairs, and not get breathless and she doesn't need to hold on to the handrail. And I know that there are some of you guys think, yeah, well, I've done an Ironman, that's nothing. But that is empowering. That's really important. She can walk upstairs and not hold on to a handrail. Sounds simple, but it's important for people. In addition, visually, structurally, her posture, her present is radically evolved. She just brings a presence to it. She's reporting and you can visually see this you can feel it better mood, improved energy, improve sleep, and of course shifting body composition. We started to move the needle on that despite going through massive hormonal change. And better still, she is now getting something that -- whisper it -- I never thought would occur, she's getting athletically ambitious. She's starting to feel like an athlete. And she could never have imagined it. She's excited about showing up and doing. She thinks about it as a challenge. And what would that be? What will be the athletic challenge that she ends up taking on? I have no idea. And it doesn't matter right now. What matters is that she has us at her back. We're going to support her. But more than that, she's got her tribe, her people in that treadmill circuit class, in the strength workout, she's got the accountability, and she feels greater confidence, better mood, shifting body composition. She's starting to believe that she is an athlete. And really what that is, is a high-functioning individual. Now, I want you to make no mistake when I talk about this -- Nina's story is every piece, every part, as much of a Purple Patch story as any of the countless wins and podiums that we've supported athletes achieving over the years. In fact, these are the stories that make me most proud as a coach. Nina had done terrifically well, and coming from the wilderness, of a lack of athleticism, to feeling that now, feeling the energy, this spice of life, the vibrancy that comes from commitment, and showing up and being successful and consistent. I'm so glad that you feel it now. She had to come inside and do some indoor training, build it around strength and some high-intensity intervals, which for her we're walking on a grade on the treadmill, but out of it, she developed consistency and that is key. All right, folks, we are to down one to go. Let's finish it with Bill. This is a goodie. Bill is 52 years of age, he is a father, time-starved, very, very busy. And back in his past 20 or 25 years ago, he was a high school athlete, and then post high school into college did a lot of intramural club-type sports. And throughout that time, he was a really committed runner. But ultimately, about 15 years ago or so injuries forced him to stop. And he decided, look, running just isn't for me. And as I remember his quote that he said to me, "my knees just don't like running." And so in that time, he's managed to commit to some riding outside, he's purchased and utilized a rower, so a rowing ergometer. And while still identifying as a runner, he has fallen into the culdesac of just thinking he shouldn't or probably couldn't ever run anymore. And so therefore, he's been understandably for the last few years and with a little bit of a rut of ambition, no real goals, certainly a lack of consistency in his training, but ultimately, really eager to infuse something competitive back into his life. The question is, what's it going to be, it was always running but now he quote, "can't do running." While he misses competition, it's like, I don't even know what I want to train for anymore. And so I decided to try and help bill. And it was around the time many people reach out for a little bit of hope, and we had a couple of consultations. And I did a little bit of a diagnostic on Bill's situation.
Matt Dixon 37:33
Now, one of the things I should add, as it pertains to this case study is, I don't often take athletes’ words for things. And that sounds paradoxical but quite often, an athlete's perception, and their beliefs of their situation, is anchored in a personal experience of frustration, and also a series of symptoms where they haven't found the solution so they ultimately without realizing it, just give up on it. It's just like, this isn't for me. And this was very much the case for Bill. But I realized in helping athletes in a variety of different manners over many, many years that most athletes don't have the capacity or the experience to really think outside of the box. And so if they go down the freeway of normal and common practice, it was probably true bill wouldn't run again. He certainly couldn't absorb consistent heavy load running. So, therefore, he was consistently getting injured, therefore he gave up. But I wanted to invite bill to think out of the box, and that's what we did in his run. I would also add, as the diagnostic bill clearly had that tough recent history of consistency. And the reason for that I saw was that his modalities of choice really didn't jive with his true passion. He wanted and loved running but he perceived that he couldn't do it. And so he -- his surrogate for running was a whole bunch of stuff that he didn't really enjoy that much. And so that became a misalignment and it's no wonder that consistency suffered out of it. If you don't love the journey, it's very high chance that you're not going to be able to build real consistency. A third diagnostic around Bill was his weakness -- structurally, stability, athletically, and I wasn't surprised whatsoever that he had a very rich history of injuries, with his lack of mobility, a lack of strength and stability that as he crept into his 40s, and now early 50s, became a huge limiter on performance no matter what the modalities or goals were going to be.
Matt Dixon 43:29
And yet with all of this, when I spoke to his physical therapist, I looked at his MRIs, or at least I had a friend of mine that really knows how to read their MRIs. Look at the MRIs. And there were no big red flags, nothing that was preventative in theoretically, a safe return towards running. The question, as I said to Bill was, how? And I think that's important. And so the first thing that I did with Bill was have a conversation and say, here's what I want to do, I want you to go over the coming months, where we're going to try and convert you back to identifying and practically being a runner, I felt like we could get Bill running consistently and healthily over the course of a three-month project. And so in other words, at the end of the three months, our goal wasn't to have him improved as run as a runner, but instead have a platform where he could go and deploy more regular running training. And I believe that out of that if he could do three months really, really well. And bravely, thinking out of the box a little bit, at that three-month marker, which the end of it was just a couple of weeks ago, hence probably why Bill is a case study in today's show. But I believed that he would be in a place where he could then go on and identify goals, that he could successfully go and train and race almost any type of running race that he wished for. So in other words, when we sat down just a few months ago, I said, if you have the courage to think outside of the box and apply strategies that maybe you haven't even thought about before, I believe you can be a place to start training and go and compete and successfully race in any type of running race possible. And that was radically different than Bill's perceptions just three months ago. So with that, nearly all of his training was indoors. He's a runner, at least he was being converted back into a runner, and he did next to no running outdoors. And the truth is that our approach that we deployed was a classic multi-sport approach to running -- the backbone of our run squad program. Here's how we did it.
Matt Dixon 47:41
Number one, the bullseye for the last three months, that rest of the endurance program was built around, strength training. And he committed to in-person strength training, happened to be at the center here in San Francisco, but twice weekly. And similar to Nina's situation, this was structured and progressive and most importantly, coached, so that he could get feedback and do it right. So the small group strength was critical for him. Then when he traveled because he's very busy as an executive, he leveraged the video-based coaching that we have so in person as much as he could video-based strength coaching, again, tailored following through less of the accountability and coaching from a feedback standpoint, but at least you're getting coached through the workout. And he could do it at Hotel gyms via his iPad, very, very simple, really, really high value. So that was number one.
Matt Dixon 48:38
The second component that Bill utilized was treadmill sessions. And to begin with, and I want you to hear this, trying to progress to him becoming a runner, there was zero running in those sessions, it was all hill-based walking. We decided to focus on trying to develop the muscles in not what they call the posterior chain, low back, glutes or your butt. Hamstrings, the back of the leg, all the way down to the calves and getting very, very strong. And we sought to gain intensity from the grade rather than the speed changes. Very similar to what we did in Nina's situation. And, in support of this. We did no running to begin. No running at all. So it still demanded physical challenge, it was still high-intensity work, but it was all grade-based walking. And that was the start of it. Now he could do these solo when traveling, or he could do them as a part of the treadmill and strength circuits and Bill and Nina know each other, so that gives you enough of the picture. He could occasionally join those when he was with us in San Francisco, but in a lot of those sessions he did remotely, hotel gyms, and other clubs when he was traveling. And then the third component which I think was the really important component is he really embraced multi-sport, but not as a surrogate instead as a supplement for his running training. So he got a lot of higher intensity from his rower and his peloton, and the peloton is where he followed the Purple Patch on-demand video sessions via his iPad. So he actually ignored the screen on his peloton and did the Purple Patch bike coaching and that worked really, really well. Again, structured, and progressive, so there was a little less a la carte and a little bit more rhyme and reason into the training. So doing that and some rowing ergometer at home, at the gym, short sessions, higher intensity, really, really valuable. And then when he was traveling, if he didn't have access to any of those, he would occasionally use an elliptical. But it was all built around the focus of developing cardiovascular and muscular endurance to gradually build up his platform of readiness to start to run. And after about six weeks, we then integrated running, and we ran -- and listen to this -- almost daily. But the vast majority of the runs were very, very easy, short, and always included, walk breaks. So even with a 10-minute walk that was maybe done after a strength workout or 10-minute run, I should say after a strength workout, that included three walk breaks for about 20 seconds, every third, sixth, and ninth minute. And that was really helpful. And gradually over time, these soul filling very easy, joyous runs that began as walk with run breaks, and then run with walk breaks and slowly integrated less and less walk breaks, never removed them, but less and less, in other words, less frequent over the course of the body, we progress from three minutes of running, five minutes of running over six weeks now he's almost up to 40-minute sessions of running once or twice a week, with the other workout somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes. Almost daily, accessible, with zero intensity.
Matt Dixon 52:07
And so where does he come as he emerged from this? He hasn't had any injury. He is running. He's built tissue resilience. But -- and there's a but here -- he's not ready at the end of that three months, to really turn up the noise on running. We started the program and said, I believe in three months, you can get to a place where you can take on any running challenge. And that's almost true. But what I've asked for Bill is for one month, maybe six weeks more of patient progression to where he can confidence-wise, and physiologically capable of actually running up to 60 minutes and running most of the days a week, five to six days a week with the majority of the rest of them really easy if he can get up to that tissue resilience and stay healthy. And then I think I can remove the shackles. And this becomes really important and helpful. But guess what? Spring, not this spring. But this next spring is already registered for a 50k, a trail running race. Gulp. I think that if he stays smart, there is no reason you can't do it.
Matt Dixon 53:24
And so folks, little case study insights for you. People that are smart, and pragmatic, think out of the box and leverage the environment that they have the shorter days, the colder days for many, and taking that as an opportunity to build a platform to go on and either become athletically ambitious, to build a season of wonderful performance evolution, 70 minutes over the course of a half Ironman or reignite a running career going into something he's never done before Ultrarunning. And I think that's pretty cool at the center of it smart pragmatism. And so I hope that it helps us a little bit of inspiration and insight into how we go about indoor running training. And you know what I'm gonna do, I'll speak to you next time. Take care.
Matt Dixon 54:17
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'll 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.
Matt Dixon 55:12
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
nina, athlete, sessions, running, neil, patch, big, build, training, strength, coaching, purple, minutes, week, component, months, case study, demanding, thinking, bit