Episode 343: Priming for the New Year
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Welcome to the Purple Patch Podcast!
IRONMAN Master Coach Matt Dixon, host of the Purple Patch Podcast, outlines the mission for 2025, emphasizing the importance of setting clear goals and maintaining a high-performance mindset. He introduces a four-part series, "Winning in Triathlon 2025," focusing on training strategies and mindset. Dixon shares his coaching philosophy, which includes setting a vision, planning priorities, executing with accountability, and reflecting on progress. He advises athletes to focus on strength training, conversational running, and technique in swimming during January. Dixon also highlights the importance of alignment between coach and athlete, ensuring clarity and commitment to long-term success.
Purple Patch Method
He explains the importance of the word "winning" in the context of personal growth and achieving success beyond just race outcomes. He shares his passion for developing high performers and world champions, emphasizing the broader impact of coaching on athletes' lives beyond sport. Matt explains the four pillars of the Purple Patch methodology: smart training, strength and conditioning, high-quality nutrition, and recovery. Matt describes the infinity loop model, which consists of four main components: vision, planning, execution, and reflection.
If you have any questions about the Purple Patch program, feel free to reach out at info@purplepatchfitness.com.
Episode Timecodes:
:00-1:04 Promo
1:30-8:04 Intro
8:30-23:00 Meet and Potatoes
23:40-54:16 Infinity Loop
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Transcription
Matt Dixon 00:00
Happy New Year folks, set your vision, understand your way, gain clarity on your priorities, what you should focus on and perhaps what you can disregard not focus on, learn how to integrate into your life so that you facilitate consistency, control, effectiveness, and build mechanisms of accountability and support to keep you honest help you stay on track, and of course, get back on track if you happen to stray off course, the result is you up level in your life, in your health, and, of course, in your sport. This is really what Purple Patch coaching is. And in my mind, it's not like other coaching, whether you're a one to one coached athlete or a part of our coach Purple Patch tri squad. We are ambitious. We drive for results so that we could unite a great life and 2025 but it's your year to win. Under this context, feel free to reach out info@purplepatchfitness.com we'll set up a complimentary call now 2025 let's do this. It's the Purple Patch Podcast. 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 in a great sport into life.
Matt Dixon 01:33
And welcome to the Purple Patch podcast as ever your host, Matt Dixon and folks, Happy New Year. I am recording this on location in Montana. Yes, that is where Kelli myself and, of course, Baxter are spending the holidays. We left Millie the burner doodle at home. What's it like hanging out in Montana for the holidays? Well, you'll be pleased to know that I did go to the feed store, and I saw lots of very nice cowboy boots. I also learned from Jerry that in the local garage sale, he got a $10 snow blower, and goodness me, the shock when it got home and it didn't work. It took quite a lot of work to get going. But don't worry, there is no snow on his driveway. He managed to clear it off, and I feel thoroughly cleansed, as does Baxter with the hyper dose of chlorine at the local YMCA pool, we swam quite a few times, and I can almost keep up with Baxter nowadays. It's been a lot of fun, but this is it, folks. We're not here to talk about my holidays in Montana. We are getting ourselves set up for a year like no other. And how do I introduce this short kickoff show that we're going to drive forward and set the mission and purpose for 2025 Well, how about this? Let's give it a crack. When I coach the squad of Purple Patch pros, I want to tell you I was pretty darn ambitious. The truth is that I wanted to coach champions. In fact, I wanted to coach world champions, and not just one. I wasn't happy with a single crown of a champion, my mission, my drive of passion and a desire to have a positive impact on endurance sport now wrapped up in there intermingled was probably a little bit of ego as well, but I wanted to develop a team of high performers that comprise themselves to become a performance factory of world class performance. And I was competitive, I was driven, and maybe just a little bit maniacal about it. And guess what, I was pretty successful, but that hunger hasn't dissipated at all. I've still got the fire inside of me, but now it goes well beyond world class sport, because my real passion that is shared by everyone that is a part of the Purple Patch coaching team and the bigger Purple Patch team at large extends well beyond professional sport. You see, we want you to excel. If you care about your performance in sport, in life, we have got your back. We want you to up level in 2025 and so as we started to plan the first month of podcasts over the course of this year, we thought, how can we do this where we can really have an impact, give people some education and some actionable tools that they can go and apply, so that they get off on the best foot? So we thought, You know what? Let's set up a January Series that we're going to title winning in triathlon 2025 we're going to re narrow our focus, and we're going to talk about training and all of the supportive ingredients to ensure that you can set up a great breakout year in triathlon, whatever it means for you over the course of this year. And I think winning is a great. Right word, because it's not just about coming first. It isn't even about a single race. Because I'd like you to put winning in the context of your life and what's important to you today. What we're going to do is a very short preview episode so that we can ground ourselves, ensure that we've got the right mindset for the month of education that we've got ahead and following on from this show, we're going to go through four episodes that build on each other, and by the end of it, you should have clarity, the tools to set up a great strategy so that you can be successful over the course of the whole year. Now, over the course of the coming weeks, I encourage you to listen every single week, because each episode builds on the prime and as you do so, if you find it interesting, if you think it's useful, please do me a favor, share the episodes via your social medias, or, of course, direct to someone that you think might benefit. Here's what we're going to do today. First, I want to get grounded in mindset, how we view our role as coaches and guides to folks just like you when we try and help you up level. And I think this is a great path so that we're all locked in shoulder to shoulder as we approach the month ahead of education. I then want to break down some of the how that we go through when we coach people at Purple Patch, and we do this in a systematic way so that we can ensure that we have high quality, consistently applied and keep every single person that we coach on track towards their goals. Now, as you listen today, if you're a coach, you might want to borrow from this model. I'm actually going to share our model that we use across our Purple Patch systems. And if you're an athlete, well, you might want to think about this in your terms. If you're self coached, or maybe if you're coached by someone else, you might even want to bring this to your coach and say, Hey, this might be useful. I think it's a really important quality control system to ensure that you have focus clarity, and you stay on track throughout your journey. And finally, I'm going to finish off with giving you some actionable components that you can apply this January. Now this is going to include two things. Firstly, what you should do in January as an athlete, from a training standpoint, and this is almost universal. I'd say 99% of athletes should apply these three principles that I'm going to break down that's very granular around your training. We're not going to talk about the obvious stuff, sleeping well, eating well, and then integrating a really smart, progressive approach. I'm going to give you three tools in your training. It's going to focus on strength, it's going to go focus on running. It's also going to focus on swimming. I'll even touch on the bike ride a little bit as well. And then, as a part of that third component, I'm also going to give you some homework. I want you to think a little bit and do a little bit of reflection before we kick off. Really the first step in the journey. Next week, we've got four episodes that build on each other. So you want to think about this as kicking off the new year to get grounded, and there we get going. Now I want to make sure that every single episode that we go through is highly actionable. So we're going to get into the weeds, but I'm going to ensure that you can draw from every lesson and just apply it into your own program. If you're a Purple Patch athlete, it's going to help you get grounded and receive the information and the coaching in a smarter and more pragmatic way. And if you're not a Purple Patch athlete, you'll be able to apply it to your own journey in sport. I want to try and keep it pretty short today, but also high impact, high value. So let's do it without further ado. It is time for meat and potatoes.
Matt Dixon 08:51
Yes, folks, the meat and potatoes and we start with part one around mindset. I want to come back to a word that I used in the introduction, winning. What do I mean by winning? Well, for me, it's not about outcomes, necessarily. It's not about proving something to yourself or others when I think about winning, it's about you improving, going on a journey. When you win, you get faster. Yes, you achieve your goals, whatever they are. In fact, you smash them. You do better than you could ever have anticipated. That's winning. It's a very personal thing, and yet it's more than just outcomes and accomplishments, things that give you satisfaction, pride and, of course, a little bit of an ego boost. We love to celebrate people's victories. We thrive on competition. But for me, winning goes so much more than a single outcome. I don't think about this in short term success when we coach on our goal is to help that athlete unlock performance. And rise to a new level. That's why I use the introduction as well another phrase to up level. And this isn't just in sport. I think about, yes, being driven by sporting results, but I prefer to view performance in a broader lens, because when I think about winning, it's really about gaining control. It's about having a ton of fun and feeling and achieving rewards. There is growth as a part of this, as a person and an athlete, understanding what works for you and getting all the results that you want through a sporting lens, while also in parallel, ensuring that you're boosting your health, you're improving the quality of your life, and you're driving to greater effectiveness across all of the other important aspects of your life, including work. That's really winning in my mind and this mindset has been with me since I started coaching, it drove me as a coach, as age group swimmers, where I was based in Cincinnati and Ohio, encouraging those swimmers, not just to try and go on and swim in college, but go beyond Ohio, encouraging them to go and swim in the Carolinas, in California, even internationally. And when I was coaching world class athletes, despite their journey, that was a relative short time frame, typically about a decade at most of world class commitment, I felt it was my responsibility and critically important to approach coaching these people as a whole human most of my athletes were in their mid to late 20s, and they were done with the sport by the late 30s, and so I felt that it was important I had a responsibility to Yes, drive them on towards achieving world class performance, and we were pretty good at that, but also ensure that they never lost sight on their development as an adult, and for many in their role as parents or partners to loved ones, it even went so far as trying to be a support system for them to start to set up a life beyond professional sport. This was critical, because if you're retiring as a professional athlete without endless income, and this is a fringe sport relative to the major sports you're finishing at 3538 40 years of age. What happens next? And I saw this as a part of my role as a coach. Well, that mindset informs our approach now, because I am absolutely committed, as is the whole Purple Patch team to drive personal victories in sport. But I also think it's responsible, important, vital, that we focus on the whole human being, and this really informs everything we do, how we coach, what we discuss and what we track with our athletes, and our obsession ongoing to leaning to not just delivering a training program, but to try and build practices and habits that help develop a platform of health drive effectiveness across organization in life, to improve your energy, Your cognitive function. It also drives our obsession on community togetherness, connection, ongoing support, and everything we do with education. This is a really important component. So let me give you some context here of how we apply this mindset across Purple Patch when we kick off this year 2025 whether we're talking about an athlete that is coached by me, someone that is individually coached by one of our coaching team, or an athlete that is part of our tri squad, or a more autonomous program where they draw on the expertise and support of all of our coaches, every single Purple Patch athlete is going to kick off This year, and will be asked to take some time and to identify and to share what their vision is. What does success look like for you? Why are you doing this beyond just signing up for races? What really constitutes success in the broader context? And we're just not going to make a note of this. We're going to actually track every single athlete over the course of the year. We're going to set up individual programs so that it drives towards success in this bigger vision. And we're going to ensure as we go along the journey, we're going to provide support and a healthy dose of accountability to every single Purple Patch athlete to keep reminding them, this is your why. This is what we're looking to achieve, and it's going to make it more fun and more effective along the way. So if you're highly ambitious and you're ready to commit that word is important, commit to getting better this year. You. I think that you can do a lot worse than taking on a similar mindset and never losing sight of it, because it's important if you're really going to uplevel in 2025
Matt Dixon 15:13
that you want to have high ambition. You want to stick your head out, peek over the edge, go into the place of discomfort that is a catalyst for growth. Push beyond your Frontier and commit with desire for great sporting results. We want you to win and not but and broaden your perspective and drive for long term up leveling across the other aspects of life as well. Because when you have a mindset like this, you not only optimize your chances of making huge gains in triathlon, but you also set a foundation for longer lasting, sustained high performance. This, for me, is a high performance mindset. It drives your journey. It fuels better outcomes. It makes it more rewarding. That's why we love the saying at Purple Patch, embrace the journey. I think it's a critical component. And so as it is New Year, and we set holding hands with New year, new you and all of that good stuff, set that mindset. Be ambitious, drive for great results. Get out of your comfort zone. Take on a huge challenge seriously. Take it on, be brave, but also make sure that you keep a broad perspective, because taking on a big challenge, whether it's a race, whether it's an event, when there's something outside of sport, it's fantastic, but it's not pass fail. The journey is the catalyst of the rewards. That's how you have a catalyst for greater fun. So that's our mindset when we think about this month ahead of education. Now I want to transition to the how, and I think that you might find this pretty useful. How do we coach people? So this is the backbone, the absolute backbone of being coached. Whether you're coached directly by myself, one of the Purple Patch coaches, or via our tri squat program, and we have a saying at Purple Patch, evolve or die. We're always looking to grow, evolve, shift how we do things, to continue to improve, to deliver more sustainable, better results for our athletes. And this has long been our system, but for 2025 what we've decided to do is bring this system forward to make it overtly a core component of being coached by Purple Patch. And so what we're delivering today to you by The show is a little bit of an insight into our system. So in other words, it's how we actually facilitate our methodology and our approach, the Purple Patch method. So let's just pause on that for a second, because I think this is really important. As a coach, I have a methodology, and it is well trodden over the course of this show. I believe in ensuring that we integrate smart training consistently over time, and that training, swim, bike and run is most effective when we build practices and habits that are equal in emotional importance. So we prioritize recovery, downtime, sleep, etc, as much as we do the very hard work that is a prerequisite to success. Every Purple Patch athlete integrate strength and conditioning season long so that we can, not only have be functionally optimal for everything in life, but we can yield the max more performance gains in the sport. And we also spend a lot of time thinking about practices and habits of high quality nutrition, fueling and hydration to support that training, but also amplify other areas of life. So those are our four pillars. We wrap it up. We call it the Purple Patch method. That is our methodology. And it started with our pro athletes. It continued down with the very busy executives that I work with, one to one. It extends down to all Purple Patch athletes that are coached individually by myself and the rest of the Purple Patch team, and continues all the way through to our tri squad and our other squad programs, our run squad, our bike program, as well as our standalone strength. This is the mindset, this is the methodology. But the key what I want to go through today is the system of application. So how do I ensure, as the lead of Purple Patch that I stay consistent with application, and every one of my athletes understands where they're at on the journey. But more than that, how do I ensure universal practice and application of that methodology across the team of the Purple Patch coaches are. And all of the athletes that they lead, and then extend it on even broader How do I infuse it where it becomes a part of the nomenclature, the language and the programming for all of our athletes that we guide in Purple Patch? This is our system, and I think you're going to find it very, helpful. Now, you might have your own system here, but I share it today so that hopefully you can not necessarily mimic the system exactly, but you might be able to draw on the principles of this model that I'm going to share and apply it to you setting up your season. And the reason I wanted to share this today in our first kick off, a little grounding. Episode is because over the course of the coming month, episode one, episode two, episode three, episode four, of our building education. I'm going to consistently refer back to this book, so it's very important as we go through Remember, we want to win at triathlon 2025, so if you're watching this on YouTube, the video version of this podcast, it's going to be a little bit easier, because Barry has delivered some very nice graphics for you, because he is a master of graphic design. But if you're listening, you're going to have to rely on my words, but I'm going to make sure that I really am descriptive, and I talk you through the way that our model works. Let's fame frame it first is very simple, okay, it's an infinity loop. So in other words, it's never ending. You know, if you look on the inside of your wrist, you might even have that very nice tattoo. It's an infinity it never ends. But there are four main components to this. So phase one, phase two, phase three and phase four, and we're going to break each of these down as we go through the journey. Now, I talked about this before, but the reason that this is important is for absolute insurance of universal application of our coaching methodology. That's great, but there's more value to this for myself as a coach, my team of coaches, as well as all of the athletes that interact with this model, because it really helps with some of the things that are pitfalls in a coaching relationship. It ensures alignment and buying, in other words, for us as a coaching organization and each of our athletes to be aligned and bought off with what the vision and what success looks like. And that's an incredibly grounding, important component. I'm going to talk about this, in a sense, in a couple of moments. The model also delivers to the athlete, so that to you, if you're a Purple Patch athlete, it delivers a great sense of clarity. In other words, this is what I need to be doing as an athlete to be successful, a sense of very strict prioritization, where you're going to apply your energy and focus, and that delivers a sense of great calming, control and effectiveness. And I think this is one of the core reasons that so many athletes feel like they get time back with Purple Patch. You've probably heard me say this before, but I hate the phrase less is more. I also don't like balance, by the way, because it's not less is more. What it is is the most training that you can do that's effective, that's really important. So so often we talk about getting time back, but that's not because we're doing less. It's because we're prioritized and focused on the core things that are going to drive the performance needle, and we try and remove the distractions that are just going to add confusion and a waste of time and energy. So this model is really the backbone of how we manage to achieve this. The model also enables the coaching to be more effective. It helps athletes stay on track, and also builds important flex into the system, because always, whenever you go on a journey, there's things that you haven't thought of, and there are going to be obstacles and roadblocks where you need to adapt and evolve the approach. But in this model, it's built in, and I think that's a very important component. It also has really nice systems of feedback, clear communication to ensure that we can continue to drive effectiveness in the coaching. And finally, the last component that we're going to think dig into is integrated checkpoints. In other words, points of reflection, a core trait of high performance reflection to ensure that as an
Matt Dixon 24:30
athlete, you've got a clear understanding of this is the progress being made. It's a good catalyst for ongoing motivation, and it also has an opportunity to prevent that coach, athlete, straying apart. That happens so often because you pause, come out of the weeds, out of the day to day, come up and look back, what's going What? What needs to improve, and now look forward. Where do we need to apply our attention? And that is an infinity loop. So there are four. Critical phases in this cycle, and this cycle continues through now, if you picture an affinity loop with the model, this is something that happens generally annually, phase one, phase two, then get going, and then at the end of the year review, but it happens much more frequently than that. We also have a mini cycle of the same model that occurs periodically, and that tends to be anchored around call to end. So at the end of big each block, or maybe after a major an event, reflect, recommit, let's go again. So there are these mini cycles that occur. There's a big annual and we're in that phase right now of planning so that we can get forward, and we're going to do that together. Then there's a quarterly or after major events that we re kick off another cycle. But even weekly, this occurs, we integrate this model and mindset our system into our planning and prioritization every single week, and we do this by leveraging our tool of prioritization and planning, which we call at Purple Patch, the Sunday special. We've done whole episodes on the Sunday special. You can go back and listen to them. It is a critically important tool to organize not just your training, but all of the elements of your life. And we started the Sunday special routine with our pro athletes and our very busy, time starved executives, but it permeates like language and behavior through the whole of Purple Patch. Now, all right, so the tool becomes really important. It is a important framework to deliver consistency. And you've heard me talk about this show, so much consistency is potent for performance predictability. So that's how we do it. All right, let's go through each of them, and let's just highlight around two minutes on each one. So phase one, you want to imagine this starting as you look at it on the top left hand corner of our affinity loop. Phase One, we label this the North Star. And I could argue that this is perhaps the most essential part of the coaching journey, and it's a part of your homework that I'm going to give you at the end of today's session. Okay, what's your vision? So what do I mean by that? If an athlete comes to me and they say, Hey, I've signed up for XYZ race, it doesn't matter what it is, we always pause and say, Hang on before we start diving into your 1216, 2048, week training plan to get you ready for this race. Let's really get alignment, coach, athlete, alignment on what success looks like. So when I say vision, if you imagine sitting with each other in a year's time in the same setting, and you say, how will we define success? So as an athlete, how will I know that this coaching relationship or my commitment to this journey is really successful, and quite often that goes well beyond results in sport, what's really important to you, and this is really a key component. And out of this, you say, hang on, what's my purpose here? What's my why? That's the real catalyst that drives long term commitment. And I think this is what is ultimately crucial. So when you think about vision and purpose, here's a nice way to think about it. I heard this the other day, and I really liked it. What's going to go on your tombstone? Okay, you got a few words, and that might be a loving and caring father or mother, or it might be, I've got a completely clear inbox. I don't know what it might be, but it might be a driver of what is ultimately most important to you live the great life with high quality. What's going to go on your tombstone? This is your vision. This is your purpose. This is the thing that is going to drive your long term commitment. Is going to fuel that motivation over the long term, much more than getting ready to try and hit a qualifier for the Boston Marathon or try and complete your first Iman, that stuff is really important, but really defining in phase one, this is what are we doing here? Where we going to point the ship? I just had the other day, an athlete that is a very good amateur athlete. And he talked to me, and he said, I want to become the very best athlete I can be. I want to race at the professional level. And my answer was, be careful. Be very careful. Because if that is truly important to you, and that is the vision, to develop up to world class and then my role as a coach is to hold my expectations up to those standards. So what we're going to do, if we're aligned on this, and we say we are going towards world class performance, I am going to set the journey of what is necessary for you to get there. And then with that commitment, I'm going to hold you to account. And that's not quite as easy as being a wonderful age group athlete, and so it's a critical component. I use that as an example so that I as a coach, or any coach, your coach, can get alignment as an athlete. This is the vision, and coming out of that vision still part of the first phase of this model is our goals. And our goals are simply stepping stone targets along the journey to that vision. They drive our actions towards the vision. So this is a great goal, whether it's a race or an event or a set of criteria that we're chasing that is measurable, that will define the actions that we take, but it should all be leading on a journey. And the reason I spend so much time talking about this at the start is because this phase is so often completely skipped or rushed. And the key part about this is I don't think the coaching relationship as a Purple Patch athlete, whether it is coached with me, coached by one of the coaches or a part of our tri squad, you can't really be successful without there being universal buying and clarity. This is what we are driving the ship towards. It's important. When I coached my pro athletes, I refuse to move on until we had absolute clarity buying and commitment on this. This is what we're doing. I remain remember saying things along. Let's do what it takes to define what success looked like, so that then together, we can set the pathway it's going to inform how I approach you as an athlete, and if you tell me that you want to be world class, world class, and then it informs my mindset of how I establish expectations and the practices that are necessary. And so in other words, get aligned, then we're driving shoulder to shoulder towards the vision. So that's the first phase of it, very, very important. We're going to talk more about that over the coming month. We're month. We then move on to the second phase, which is really planning phase two. Now, when I think about road mapping or setting the pathway or planning many, many coaches and athletes do this by going into a either lovely spreadsheet or maybe one of the programs, and they create what's called the ATP, the annual training program. And goodness me, the annual training program or annual training plan, isn't it pretty? It's often got nice little bar graphs, three up, one down. It's got all sorts of different colors. You've got every event in eventuality in there, it is your roadmap of life and training, and in my opinion, it's pretty much a waste of time. Particularly we're the time starved athlete, because life is not a spreadsheet. Time starved athletes lives just don't work that way. When you've got family, you've got work, you haven't got travel from work. Got all of these other components. I see so many athletes and coaches spending hours building up these spreadsheets, but I've never seen a spreadsheet that is actually implemented anywhere close to what the plan suggests. So instead, I think there's an alternate way of doing this, to get clarity, buy in and prioritization, save your energy on that stuff. Instead, go through a more simple process or a prioritization exercise. So what does that? What do I mean by that? Well, first, when I think about setting the roadmap, it's really about priorities, commitments and clarity, those are the three big words that I think are really important. Number one, what do we need to focus on to be successful in our mission and vision? So in other words, what are the critical areas of focus? Now you can think about this in terms of boulders, rocks, pebbles and sand. So you go down and you focus on the boulders and maybe some of the rocks first. These are the things that are going to drive the performance needle, the most important things. And you can do this in any arena in life. We're talking about triathlon training here. One of my boulders, great. The second part of it is, what am I with deliberate intent not going to focus on things that are incrementally may be beneficial, but often cause distraction because they become overwhelming. I heard another great thing the other day. You don't want to major in minors. So for you guys that are American, you'll understand that the minors, the secondary, the subsequent stuff. It's not a key component. There was some wonderful research when they looked at various different sports and they looked at the medalists, those folks on the podiums, versus those that were highly committed but didn't achieve consistent greatness. And one of the biggest differentiators is that the medalist tend to spend. The lion's share of their time doing the main activity. So if they are running, they spent most of their time running. If they were a triathlete, they spent most of their time swim, bike and running and integrating strength. And what they didn't get distracted by is too much time, even though this is important with mobility and ice baths and massages and components like that. Those things can be important, but you want to be very, very deliberate with the integrating those components in it. You build it around the boulders that's the most important components. And so there is a very, very strict prioritization exercise that you need to go through as an athlete, or if you're coached, go through with your coach and get clarity. Okay, this is it buying. This is what we are going to do. And there's a big one that you do at the start of the year. So around now, you also break it down and say, Okay, with that in mind, what are we going to focus on in the coming block, the next six, 810, 12 weeks? And it should be simple, clear and actionable. It's critically important, and it should cover more than just training. So when you think about triathlon, we're talking about planning and effectiveness. We're talking about nutrition and hydration, sleep, equipment, recovery, mindset, confidence and your training. Dial it down and be absolutely savage, savage when you're filtering it so that you can ensure it's very, very clear and it's actionable. Now what emerges after this phase is a preventative thing of one of the big dismantling components of the performance journey, confusion and a lack of clarity. As an athlete, when you've done this planning, you should be able to say, this is what I'm focusing on. I have complete clarity. It seems accessible and actionable, so it's not overwhelming, and I'm committed to it. That's it. And if you finish that phase, you set the vision, and then you set the path through this, you can get to commitment. This is what I'm committing to.
Matt Dixon 37:15
Now this is such an important component. It's so important. And I encourage you write it down as a Purple Patch athlete. Every single athlete this year is going to write this down. We're going to have vision, what's important, what's your purpose, goals, the actionable steps to get there. And then what am I going to focus on? Where am I going to apply my energy and my focus? And it's a commitment. And we write it down, and you know what we're going to do, we're going to track it. And in phase three, we're going to talk about the coaching to it. So I really encourage you, when you think about this as a system, it becomes really important. These are these first two phases, the most important phases of the model. So many people rush it, skip over it, but if you don't spend the time to get this right, it's only going to lead to confusion. It's going to lead to conflicting mindsets. You're going to actually dismantle one of the key components of highly effective coaching, which is flex. If anything goes wrong, you don't have any flex in the program, and ultimately, typically, it delivers a lower ROI on your effort. That's why so many athletes get injured, gets frustrated, feel like they've gone cold, go down cul de sacs at performance plateaus and other components. But if you get it right, if you get this right, it's so important, because you're going to gain control, clarity and the ability to flex and focus on the things that are going to drive the performance needle and that leads to better results. So as I mentioned this year, every Purple Patch athlete is going to go through this. You have a profile in every single athlete in the system. And we've got vision, we've got goals, you've got focus and priorities. We store them, and then throughout the season, we're going to continually check in and come back and revert to this, because these are the athlete commitments. Now, a one to one coached athlete. They're going to work directly with their coach and myself, as I oversee and manage and support every one of our coaches. Tri squad athletes are going to be supported by the squad team, the Purple Patch coaches, and, of course, myself and we're not going to lose sight of this, because it's important for this system to apply our methodology to drive to better results. We're going to hold you to account, support you and report on your progress. So once you've done this, and I should say at this point, this isn't rocket science. This isn't some three day off site where we workshop with a huge whiteboard. What I'm talking about here is sometimes a 30 minute call, a 60 minute call, a point of reflection, and writing it down for yourself as an athlete, but you want to do. This. Don't just dive into New year, new year. Go and get a gym membership. Start training really hard on going for it. Spend the time. It's valuable, because when you've got that, you can move confidently to phase three execution. In truth, this is where, in the classic sense, the coaching comes into play. As a one to one to one coach, my role once we've established vision, we've set the path, so we've got focus and clarity and commitment boom. Now my role as a coach phase three execution is to actually hold the athlete to account to their commitments. So all of those things that we established in phase two, and as we go along, day by day, week by week, I'm listening, I'm watching, I'm gaining feedback, I'm providing feedback, and I support, because accountability isn't with a big stick, it's also supportive, and it's helping when things get really tough and fatigue starts to creep In. It's helping the athlete stay on with their commitments and then course correct as they navigate the inevitable challenges and setbacks that occur. And so we adapt when needed. And this is so important,
Matt Dixon 41:15
because for the athlete, you need to day to day, just put your nose down, do it. But for great, real breakthroughs, you can't just live in the weeds. You got to get down there. You got to do the doing. You got to rinse and repeat. Yet, when I observe athletes really thriving, they thrive when they're putting their energy into the right things at the right time, and they have a support network around them. It's so important, so it's a part of the system. Now, let me be abundantly clear when we talk about this, because I get this question all the time, AI generated programs can't solve this part of performance, at least not yet, and so anyone telling you that they can is selling you bug because this part of the program is a very human component. In fact, how many pro athletes leverage training plans delivered via AI Zero? None. And there's a reason for that. Pro athletes lean into teams and the very human aspects of performance. So with the truth of this coaching, this part of the model, the execution part the coaching, with this part is with prescribed training and other performance habits, and it is one that relies wholly on phase one and phase two to be effective. Again, not just what your environment is, your level of fatigue, that's the simple stuff. This is about building practices and habits so that you can layer on training consistently and channeling your energy and focus into the right fit. And so I believe that coaching successfully goes well beyond the workouts and the plan and this proven model, or system, if you want to call it, that highlights it. So do the doing effectively with a human component. Highly encourage you to do that. Then finally, the last piece of the model is reflection. And this takes on many forms annually. It's a huge point of reflection. And I would encourage people when they think about reflection annually. Many of you guys have gone through this, it should cover all aspects of life the entire season. Paul's come up and say, Okay, what went really well this year? What am I really proud of? 2345, things. Where are the areas that I can improve that maybe didn't go as well or I didn't follow through as I planned at the start of the year, and with all of that information now, where do I channel my focus and energy? Very important component. But it's not just an annual cycle that we go through this. As I mentioned, periodically, at least four times a year, you also want to pause and come up. Where are we back? Come back to our vision, come back to our commitments. How have we done great now? How do I need to apply and manage and shift my expectations? Where I'm channeling my energy, etc? And even more than that, reflection actually occurs almost weekly because re engagement, recommitment, and ensuring that you're driving towards that vision. It does need to happen every single week. And the tool that we leverage is the Sunday special. It is a part of this performance model. It really is every week. I love athletes to think what went well last week. What was really good? What can I build on? Where did I fall short, not by paying penance or thinking that I'm a failure, but what just derailed me, what didn't go well. And now, where do I channel my focus and my energy across all aspects of life, with my focus and vision all in my. End. And of course, my lessons from last week. And when you lock this in, it unlocks effectiveness, it unlocks greater control, it unlocks longer term results. And so this is the model that we use, infinity, setting the vision, going through priorities and doing some planning, execution mode and then consistent pauses of reflection and re engagement. I want you to study it. I want you to understand it. Because over the course of the four episodes in mid January, winning in triathlon 2025 we're going to refer to it as we finish today. Let's go back to some of the lessons. Number one, I talked about mindset. I encourage you to take a broader perspective on performance. It's going to define your success, your results. You're going to get better sporting results, but also amplify life. I also asked you to be ambitious, to set very high standards for yourself. You should do that, you should get out of your comfort zone. We always talk about taking on a bee had a big, hairy, audacious goal, but do it? Stick your neck over the edge, peer over, look into your Frontier and go beyond it. That is how we grow. And then we talked about our model, setting the vision, laying the part from the priorities, executing with intent, me holding you to account of whoever's coaching you, and then integrating mechanisms for reflection to enable some flex in the program and ensure that you stay on track. This is going to drive our next four weeks, and here we are, but I can't finish today on that note, because I promised, as we go into 25 that every single episode that we record I'm going to integrate something actionable. And so here it is. It's the new year. You're excited. You want to have a breakthrough in your triathlon performance. Well, if you are a triathlete and you're looking to up level in 2025 How should you approach January? Three things that I think almost yet almost every athlete should apply. Here it is. The Bulls number one, January, as you come back, embrace strength training at least two sessions weekly. It retains in January the bullseye focus. I really like this in off season. I think it needs to remain a priority. You won't regret a focus on strength in January that is going to pay you back dividends, as long as you stick with it throughout the rest of the year. And so number one, whether you've been somewhat haphazard with training, maybe you've finished the world championship that wasn't so many weeks ago, and you've had a little bit of a break, maybe you've been training consistently in off season, no matter what a catch all the big JC, big digger scoop, we should embrace strength training. That's number one, so make sure you lock that in, whether you're just starting or whether you've been doing it for several months. Number two, let me give you a tip on running. The vast majority of athletes, and there's only a sprinkle salt and pepper. Few that may deviate from this. The vast majority of athletes benefit from a January of running that includes the vast majority of your running being executed at a conversational effort. You always hear about Zone Two. Oh so magical, so new. It's only been around since human styling running, but most of your running done a conversational effort. Easy, continue to build the tissue integrity, so tendons, ligaments, metals, muscles start to prime it up. Conversational effort. There is no rush to run hard already. Now you can do a little sprinkler speed with what we call running strides, 1015, seconds, a very, very fast, explosive running, feeling elastic and supple. You can also do some bounding, 2030, up to 42nd efforts, on Hill, on flat, to do some over speed and over recruitment work. But none of this is done hard. We're not driving towards fitness January. Running conversational. I really encourage you to begin in January at your current starting line, particularly around running, okay, ensure that it's sustainable and you can progress from it. So under number two our running, I would say, start a start line, most of it conversational, and look to run frequently. What do I mean by that? I really like athletes to get to almost daily running in most scenarios, and in order to do that, you need to win every session. We've talked a lot about winning today, when I think about winning, what that means is that you need to finish any single running session with a level of fatigue that is mild. Do it most. In other words, you could repeat that exact session the next day. So that's a nice barometer to think about. So that's a catch all with your running. Okay? Final component I'm going to focus on. I tend to focus on cycling so much, so I deliberately didn't put anything in really around cycling right today. The third thing is, swimming. Winter tends to be a great time to focus on your swim again, particularly folks that have indoor swimming pools, it's a good time to get inside and get swimming, but with your swim, I'd really encourage January to be less about a drive to huge fitness instead really focus on technique and form based swimming. All right, you can build your fitness, yes, and if you're looking to build your fitness in swimming, particularly if you haven't been swimming much, I would do it not by long, over distance work. Instead, in January, I would tend to lean most of the programming to doing shorter, slightly higher intensity intervals, so technique and form, and then marry that with short intervals, a ton of 20 fives and 50s each with just a short bit of rest, so that you can reset the mind, get the system under control, and ensure that every stroke that you do in the swimming pool is done with Good quality, good intention, good body position and good propulsion. There is very low return on investment on just plowing up and down the pool really slowly, putting enough tension on the chain. It's almost like you're petting a little kitty cat. You want to apply force propulsion with intention and so doing short intervals, bridge together. Many, many, many, 20 times 2530 times that. 2550 times 25 for some people, 100 times 25 etc, is a better yield as it goes to go through, alrighty. So what that means is, while you are building consistently, consistency in January, we're not really obsessing on those central fitness gains. I couldn't give a hoot what your FTP is or what your 5k time is. Build the platform in January. Alrighty. Now most of you guys are not riding outside. You tend to be riding inside a little bit more. So if you are riding I'll do a bonus one. Obsess on great riding posture, great form. And if you have access to a really good video platform, like velocity, on Terrain Management, and if you're doing any of the harder work, it's a good venue biking, high intensity, short vo two, Max high intensity. Good thing to do, inverse the pyramid. Don't worry about base training over the course of January. Alrighty, alrighty. I hope that helps with a grounding of this episode, as I mentioned before, feel free to share it. Lock in. We've got the calendar ahead for our series, winning in triathlon 2025
Matt Dixon 52:57
What does winning mean for you? Here's your homework to finish Skypes before next week. We've got some simple questions for you to scribble down and answer. You can even send them in to info at Purple Patch fitness, if you would like. But most importantly, this is for you. Number one, what is the most important thing to you in your life? Two to three things that you want people to remember you by, in other words, what's going to be written on your tombstone? Write them down. Number two, question. Number two, what does success look like for you in 2025 this can extend across triathlon, but also in broader life, when we sit here in about 11 months time, how will you have you defined success. Remember, beyond triathlon, all right, it's okay to include some triathlon specific markers, but I don't want it quite so narrow. These are really important questions, and I encourage you to reflect on them. It's going to help you draw context of the lessons next week when we get into the vision of planning. Until then, feel free share this episode with socials, invite people into the journey. It should be really educational, and I hope very, very helpful. And if you have any questions at all, or you'd like to extend the conversation with Purple Patch, well, feel free to reach out. We'd love to have an individual complimentary call with you. We can be found at info@purplepatchfitness.com, cheers. Have a super week. I'm excited for the journey ahead. Take care, 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, at Purple Patch fitness.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 you.
Keywords:
vision setting, New Year goals, Purple Patch method, strength training, conversational running, swimming technique, reflection phase, accountability, high performance, triathlon strategy, mindset focus, planning priorities, execution phase, weekly reflection, athlete commitment