Episode 294: Performance Base Layer Series - Part 4: Pillars of Performance Applied (Recovery)
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Welcome to the 5-part Performance Base Layer Series on the Purple Patch Podcast. This series emphasizes the importance of building a foundation for high performance. Your Performance baselayer consists of positive habits that promote good physical and mental health and foster physiological readiness. The Purple Patch pillars of performance, endurance, strength, nutrition, and recovery are the core elements of the performance base layer.
In this series, every episode revolves around one of the four pillars of performance. Endurance and movement, strength and resistance training, and proper nutrition have already been covered. Now, let's shift our focus to the fourth pillar: recovery.
We will discuss this pillar from two different perspectives. The first perspective is "life performance," which is aimed at anyone who wants to improve their longevity, performance, or overall functioning in daily life. The second perspective is focused on endurance athletes and highlights the specific needs of competitive sports.
A robust recovery plan is essential for achieving high performance in any arena. However, many people fail to incorporate proper recovery techniques, leading to injury or suboptimal performance. In this episode, Ironman Master Coach Matt Dixon emphasizes crucial factors and tactics to assist in creating a practical recovery plan and enhance the outcomes of your endeavors in every facet of your performance.
Matt explains the different components of recovery and the physiological and performance advantages they offer. He also addresses common misunderstandings and concerns about these components and delves into the errors made when implementing them without proper understanding.
Matt also covers techniques and products aimed at amplifying recovery. He discusses how to use them properly to avoid injury. Matt provides a deeper understanding of incorporating sleep and recovery into your training program to refresh, revitalize, and ultimately enhance your performance in sport and life.
Episode Timestamps
00:00 - 03:25 - Welcome and Episode Introduction
03:32 - 8:51 - Matt's News-ings
8:58 - 54:15 - The Meat and Potatoes - Episode 294: Performance Base Layer Series - Part 4: Pillars of Performance Applied (Recovery)
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Full Transcript
Matt Dixon 00:00
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
Folks, our educational series right now is called Performance Base Layer. That is you building your base layer of great health so that you can show up in any arena that is important to you. But one of the tools that we use to help amplify the results of that journey to enable you to get specific to help you get measurable results for all of the effort that you put in, across your training, your habits, and more is InsideTracker. We leverage it at Purple Patch so that we can get really precise with the areas that each athlete wants to focus on. You can leverage the same insights as well, by taking a look inside and measuring biometrics, and then combining it with the advice across all of the aspects of longevity and performance that are appropriate, you can gain insights and recommendations to leverage your performance journey. It's all peer-reviewed. And it all comes on a lovely dashboard that's very, very simple to follow to put your action plan in place. All you need to do is head to insidetracker.com/purplepatch that's insidetracker.com/purplepatch and use a sneaky code Purple Patch Pro 20. You get 20% off everything at the store. Alright, today we are talking about my favorite. Yes, it is recovery, the fourth in our series on the performance base layer. Enjoy the show.
Matt Dixon 01:56
And welcome to the Purple Patch podcast as ever, your host Matt Dixon. And it is ladies and gentlemen, the fourth pillar today, you know, I love all my children. But I have to say this one is my favorite. Yes, we are discussing recovery. Welcome to the fourth in our series entitled Your Performance Base Layer. Whether you are seeking a pathway to improve your health span in life, wanting to show up your very best version of yourself across any endeavor, or chasing a breakthrough performance in triathlon or marathon racing, you are best served when you focus on your well being when you establish a base layer to help you perform. We kicked things off a few weeks ago now with the endurance pillar, we then dug into lifting heavy things focusing on strength training. And last week, it was all around the nutrition pillar, including, of course, hydration, and fueling across exercise. But now today, we dig into recovery. It's all in today's show, we've finished the pillars and then next week, it is the cap in the series, The final element in our five-part series, where we're going to focus on a great one, the traits and habits that make up a high-performance mindset, how to take the theory that we talked about over these last three or four weeks, and now get applied to optimize effectiveness. But before we dig into recovery today, we're going to do some news-ings.
Matt Dixon 03:32
Yes, Barry, folks, it is Matt's News-ings. And last week, you know what I did? Right at the top of the show, I made a little sneaky last-ditch effort. I snuck in to tell you about a very special Black Friday deal that we ran. And it was all about a whole month of Purple Patch training free as well as a personal one-to-one consultation with the Purple Patch coach if you decided to commit to 2024 with us, the year of transformation across the Purple Patch tri-squad. Now that deal, I'm afraid to say is officially over. I asked the team and they confirmed it. It is shut, nailed shut. But guess what? I am the one in charge. And so let me tell you, if you decide that you do want to get involved, and you want to save more than $250 All you have to do is email the team info@purplepatchfitness.com. But what you need to do is you need to let them know that I sent you. Okay? Now I promise we are going to honor this deal until the holidays. And so you can still get involved. It's madness. Call it whatever you want Cyber Monday, all of the things. It is going to be a year of transformation upfront. We're going to throw in a month of free training plus a one-to-one consultation with the Purple Patch coach to get you all planned up and ensure that you are on the right personal track. It's also a perfect holiday gift. If you want to see a friend or a family member, your partner, or a loved one, invest in their performance journey you can reach out and you're absolutely right and okay to gift this to a loved one or friend. Now I want to add one thing about tri-squad a perspective that might help you understand and appreciate the value and the power of this thing.
Matt Dixon 05:31
You can choose to go out and hire yourself as an individual coach. And if you're lucky, you're gonna get all of their expertise. And that's fantastic. But when you become a part of the tri-squad team, you actually get my expertise. But beyond that, you get much, much more. Because the ultimate power of this thing isn't me with my big ego telling you everything that I know, you get a team of coaches who are invested in your journey, educating, guiding, and coaching you, the Purple Patch team is incredibly strong. In fact, it's very difficult to become a Purple Patch coach, we don't add to the team on a whim. We have a deeply trusted team. Each of them has been with us for a very long time. They include experts in each of the disciplines in sport, as well as strength and conditioning. And that whole Purple Patch team, and we operate as a team, is supported by not just myself, but also Dylan Sorenson. Who is Dylan you ask? Well, Dylan not so long ago departed his role as the famed Head Coach of the University of North Carolina cross country and track teams. Yes, that cross-country and track team that was fifth in the nation. He joined Purple Patch just three months ago and now helps me manage organize, support, and educate our coaching team. But in addition to all of us super fueling your journey, you also have access to an array of world-class experts to support and educate you along your journey. The team from Fuelin, who are offering live free educational sessions reserved just for you Purple Patch athletes. Ivan O'Gorman and his team of renowned bike fitters that you have on speed dial and the blown his team at precision fuel and hydration engaged in helping you dial in your fueling and hydration, the Sports Medicine Institute those same very people that the white the athletic trainers for the San Francisco 49ers, the Stanford sports teams, helping you as a resource around your strength and conditioning and injury management, and a highly respected physical therapist, Rene Sangha, to support you across that whole arena as well. It is a whole team driving you forward in your corner across your performance journey. It's no wonder that we say that Purple Patch coaching is about more than just the workouts. Do you get the picture yet? If you join the Purple Patch coaching individual program, you work directly with one of our coaches, but you're still fueled by the team, you're supported by all of the experts. And if you join the tri-squad, you have full access to that whole team as well. And so if you're interested info@PurplePatchfitness.com Reach out to us, let them know, let them know that I sent you, we'll set up a free consultation. It's gonna be a fantastic year ahead, we're gonna have a lot of fun, most importantly, but we want you to show up not just to achieve the results in your sport. We want more than we want you to show up in life, in any arena. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Barry, that's the Matt's News-ings. Let's do it, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to talk about recovery. It is the meat and potatoes.
Matt Dixon 08:58
Yes, folks, the meat and potatoes. I've got to tell you, it doesn't make great TV. And ain't a compelling movie. If you spend 50% of the screen time, showing a warrior, taking a nap or sleeping, an athlete that's just getting to bed early at night, or digging into your most popular Strava workouts that are just recovery, decompression, and Soul filling. And yet those elements are as important as the hard graft, the challenging work, the epic workouts, it's the other side of the seesaw. It's 50/50 you have to work your tail off. But you got to be a ninja of recovery. But what does recovery even mean? How should you view it? How should you embrace its concepts? With it so much against the grain? of how most of us view the importance of hard work, isn't it just mere laziness? Why don't we dig in today, as with our initial shows, in the Performance Series, we're going to first discuss recovery and sleep as they relate to life performance, because that's our baselayer and that's the name that I provide to the broadest lens of performance, whether it's you investing in your future self, and the quality of the life of your years that you have ahead of you, or it's you ensuring that you show up every single day, your very best, bringing your best self. And then we're just going to briefly at the end, narrow our focus, and discuss a few concepts that are particularly relevant to athletes. Now, it's well-trodden ground, recovery with athletics, but I've got some important additions today when you think about things as an athlete in recovery, so stay tuned to the end if you are chasing athletic performance. But first, we're going to start with this big thing called life.
Matt Dixon 11:09
Let me first say something that should ground us and help us frame taking it easy, embracing sleep, and prioritizing recovery. In anything that you're hoping to achieve in life, in any arena, success, and results, only come with a tremendous amount of hard work. And that hard work consistently applied over a long time. If you want to transform your performance into anything, the results typically won't be quick. Your journey will not be easy. And we're not trying to make it easier. Okay, that's not our quest here, you can be assured that the journey is going to include numerous setbacks, even failures, you're gonna get knocked back on your heels, your confidence might even take a knock, and you should expect adversity, high stress, massive demands. To achieve, you're going to need to be committed, tough, and resilient, that's the truth. If you want to be the very best leader, if you want to start your own business, let's say you want to start a coffee shop, if you want it to be great, you're gonna have to work hard. If you want to show up and be a wonderful parent. If you want to excel at your role at work, or maybe rise in the ranks of an organization. If you want to become great at playing a musical instrument. If you want to learn a language, if you want to excel in athletics and sports, it doesn't matter. No one is going to do it for you. It's fricking hard, and it's going to be down to you. That's the ultimate truth. At the end of the day, there's no sugarcoating if you want to perform in anything, you need to show up consistently, and you need to do it. And you better be ready for some hard labor. That's what success emerges from. And yet, in the most defining aspect of the highest performers across any of those arenas that I talk about, the most defining component that separates them into greatness is how well they recover. That's pretty different here. I just talked about toughness, hard work commitment, and adversity barging through power. And yet, the thing that separates the great from the good is how well they recover. And that's the truth of it. Recovery is the performance catalyst for all of that hard work for all of your toughness, your commitment. When you cast a net, it's seldom that the difference maker is he or she who is toughest. Folks that achieved sustained high performance are all tough, they're all committed. The difference maker is whether they know and actually action recovery. Let's do a case study. Now this is going to be one of my imaginary case studies. But it helps paint the picture and it's important. Now, I've spoken about this before, but let's imagine that you find yourself in a discussion with an Olympic hopeful, an athlete who is fully committed to inking their tattoo of the Olympic rings. The only question is where are they going to put it, the ankle, the small of the back, the shoulder, the chest, who knows? But they are on a quest following their qualification. When you ask them about their regime, they talk about the hours that they train, and some of the Epic workouts that they do. But then they say, You know what? Beyond that, it's all pretty simple. I don't really focus on the other side of things. And you find out that their nutrition is pretty spotty at best. And they just happen to love nightclubs and television. So typically, they stay up late at night, they compromise sleep, and they don't really spend much time embracing the various modalities that might accelerate and improve their recovery. They just show up every day and work their tail off. And I bet if you're having this conversation, and you listen to their mindset and their approach, you would probably assume that their chances of making the Olympic team and getting that illustrious tattoo were compromised. But now let's imagine a man called Jack, you can call him whatever you want. He's not a real person, but he's an executive. And let's imagine that Jack has a family with two kids, an incredibly demanding job that includes travel, he has to manage an array of competing demands. And also he needs to lead the team that he is responsible for. And then beyond that he in his capacity or reservoir, not just to executes his role, but also to think strategically and to respond to unexpected situations, little mini crises that always show up. And throughout all of it, he needs to be a positive leader and a mentor to his direct reports. And after that, he needs to be able to go home and be positive and engaged as a devoted father and husband.
Matt Dixon 16:38
Do you think that his demands and responsibilities don't need him to perform at a high level? What does good look like for Jack? Ideally? Well, what he really needs is sustained high energy, if he's going to bring his best. Yeah, he needs to have sustained high energy, and his responsibilities, and his role, demand that he has great cognitive function. He's got to be able to make clear decisions, he's got to think straight on the fly, he's got to process information. On top of it, he needs to have a physiological reservoir to respond to the unexpected, because there is a lot of unexpected in Jack's life - energy capacity, and cognitive function. And they don't occur, emerge for Jack, due to random events. The only way for Jack to achieve these predictably and consistently is through a strategic approach to some critical performance habits. And that includes smart recovery, period. Okay, period. This isn't a sales pitch to you. This is a truth. Peer reviewed, backed by the way 15 to 20 years of observation, working with some of the highest achievers in sport, and business. This is a universal truth for all of us. No matter what we chase throughout our life, sport, work, hobbies, family, sustained high performance doesn't come for free. The good news is we can all achieve it. And yes, it's tough. It's up to us. But we need to embrace recovery, as well as high commitment. And so let's break down recovery. Proper recovery is simply put a performance accelerant. Now I should frame my lens on recovery. After all, the nickname that I was given was the recovery coach. That's what I became known for back in the days when I was building one of the most successful pro squads in the history of the sport, I became known as the recovery coach because I embraced recovery and encouraged my athletes to do the same on an equal footing and value as the very hard work that was a prerequisite. And that was against the grain of the norms at the time. Nowadays, of course, people would think you were crazy. If you didn't have that perspective. Although still, as we're going to find out, we have a challenge, really embracing it. And so yes, it's a performance accelerant. But I think there are multiple layers to this. On one access, there's a timeline and that's integrated recovery, that is just going to facilitate day-to-day high performance and adaptations. So these are more your habits. And then we have a continuum where we have all the way at the other end some strategically integrated recovery blocks to allow deep rejuvenation. The way we might think about that is recovery occurs daily. I'm always cleaning the kitchen Always make him a bed. And then occasionally, we have a really deep clean. In life that might be a complete breakaway, whether it's a vacation, or even for some people, a sabbatical that enables rejuvenation mentally and physically to help us perform over the arc of time very, very well. On the opposing access, we have, what recovery actually delivers. And that's mental well-being and freshness, high cognitive function, energy and stress management, muscular and tissue health, and a robust hormonal profile, enabling us to show up. And when you successfully integrate recovery into your life, both habitually and strategically at the other end, what occurs is you start to build a reservoir of better health, you're more battle-ready to meet the demands of the day-to-day, and you develop the capacity to meet additional stresses when they come like a tidal wave washing over you. And this is important. Now in an athletic sense, I tend to break recovery down into three buckets, but we can apply that to life performance as well. The first is sport and training recovery. In other words, how you integrate recovery into your exercise program, and your strength and movement. And that is going to be very important to you. Then we think about lifestyle recovery. That tends to be aspects of recovery when we think about sleep and rejuvenation, naps, nutrition, hydration, and potentially meditation for some of you, folks. And finally, we have another category of recovery, which is modalities, which put coarsely is everything you can be sold: massage, stretching, theraguns, cold plunges, saunas, and more. And so those are my big buckets, the way that I think about it. And what I'm going to do is apply these buckets very simply to your life performance.
Matt Dixon 22:11
Okay, now, this might sound like an obvious question. But before we just dig into lifestyle, recovery, sports recovery, modalities, et cetera. Let me first ask you, why is recovery and sleep so important to you. When you're listening today? Why am I so passionate? You can feel it? Yeah, you can feel it in my voice. I'm, I'm on it today. I'm ready for it. But why is it so important? Well, we should all acknowledge the focus of rejuvenation. And most of us would agree, 'Yeah, Okay, sleep, it's a good thing. I know, it's good for me.' I can only assume that most people don't actually understand why it's important. Do you know why I say this, because the vast majority of people believe it's important, but fail to actually prioritize and action it in life. Most people don't commit to proper sleep and don't allow themselves deep rejuvenation. For most people, and I mean most, proper recovery and sleep is the very first thing that is compromised. And so I thought, let's do some quick hits. What does proper recovery and sleep give to you as it relates to life performance? Well, it turns out quite a bit. Number one, you are an adaptation machine. From all the stresses that you have to navigate in life, you will either develop resiliency, or you will weaken. Your only pathway to develop positive adaptations is by successfully integrating recovery and sleep because that is when all positive adaptations occur. If your stresses accumulate, without adequate sleep and recovery, you will now adapt. So in other words, there will be negative implications on your health, your risk of disease, your daily energy, and your body and daily function. And so are you moving your performance needle into the positive and the negative? Simply put, recovery and sleep is the answer to that question. It's going to be the catalyst of pushing it one way or the other, evolve or die, you never stay still. Secondly, proper recovery embracing it is a catalyst to improve your cognitive function. How well you can focus process information, make clear decisions, and access long and short-term memory. You can only optimize this when you are properly recovering. Without downtime and quality of sleep, you will be compromised. Therefore, you will be performance-limited. It's pretty staggering when you think about it, it's black and white. By the way, there's no faking this, there's no hacking this. If you're not successfully taking enough rejuvenation, and you're not prioritizing sleep, you are performance-limited when it comes to cognitive function. All of the peer-reviewed research shows that. Number three, with proper recovery and sleep, you will develop a more robust immune system, exercise and nutritional habits also assist in this but exercise and eating will have limited positive impact without proper sleep and downtime. So if you want to develop a strong immune system, prioritize recovery and sleep. Number four, sleep is your number one opportunity, your best route to process and manage elevated stress hormones, particularly cortisol. High cortisol is related to and associated with mental, physical, and environmental stresses that we all face in life. And so the dishwasher, component of that is downtime, is sleep, is rest. And finally, your sleep and recovery is the very path where you maximize your returns, AKA your physiological adaptations from the exercise that you do, boosting your fitness, your strength, your power, and more.
Matt Dixon 26:42
All of those components, think about those things. How could you ever expect to show up your very best if you consistently compromise on the practices of recovery? Now, this is where things get important. Because I'm asking you to embrace and prioritize sleep and recovery. But I want to be clear here, what I'm not asking you to do is to do less. I hate the phrase, less is more. It's not. Okay? Prioritizing sleep and recovery is a pathway for you to do more. To unlock the capacity to enable you to be more effective to achieve more, you aren't going to do more things effectively. So you are going to become more productive, you're going to waste less time you're going to optimize your engagement. Recovery makes you smarter, it makes you stronger, it makes you healthier. It makes you smile more. That's cute, isn't it? And so why don't we integrate recovery into how we operate? Big picture. There is no better way for you to boost your productivity long-term in any project, any endeavor than periodically shutting it down. Walking away from the problem, turning your back on it, sport, a craft product, leading a business, giving yourself periodically space, shut it down. Just like sports performance. If you want to build sustainable high performance we flourish when we occasionally back off and take a break, even me here at Purple Patch. And you think you can't turn it off? Well, for long-term sustained high performance, you can't afford not to in any arena. Research proves it. We've observed it for more than 15 years, a complete performance reset. That's why a week's holiday at the beach should aim to include absolutely minimal engagement in the workplace, staying tethered mentally and practically to the office, even though it might be 1000s of miles away is not going to allow deep rejuvenation. It's not going to allow you to actually build up and restore your mental and physical fortitude. And I would say that is one of perhaps the perils of the new connected world. If you tell me, Look, I've been away and I travel extensively. But the truth is, it's been more than five years since I've taken a proper vacation. I just assume that you're leaving life performance on the table. Because simmering underneath all of that hard work that you put in all of your commitment is an erosion of sustained high performance. You are limiting yourself. But outside of me today being a little provocative and perhaps shifting your perspective. I can't really help you action that today. So I'm not going to talk about the long term Instead, what I'm going to do, quite briefly is give you a few habits that you can integrate, once you finish listening to this show some recovery practices, okay? That's going to foster optimal recovery. And I'm going to keep it under three umbrella sport, life, modalities. Now I'm not going to reveal all today, because look, I've got a hold back to my folks that I work with on a day-to-day basis. But let me give you a few to at least get you going.
Matt Dixon 30:30
Let's talk about sport first. Okay, as a time-starved busy person, I'm going to highlight a few key aspects as they relate to your sport or your exercise. Number one, key and supporting workouts. No matter whether you're just moving- from sedentary to consistent exercise, or you're training for an Ironman. Across six or seven days a week, 3, 4, and 5 of them should include exercise, that is not that demanding, it shouldn't be that challenging. In fact, two of the days of your exercise should be under the banner of what I like to say, decompression. So don't view all of your exercises, as it being hard. Success in exercise is not bashing your head against the wall every day, for at least a couple of days, it should be therapeutic. So filling, decompression, and circulating blood at an elevated rate to help you flush the toxins of life. That's not very scientific, but you get the picture there yeah? That's going to help elevate the performance when you do turn it up when you're going to engage in some proper resistance training that we should all be doing, and some of that high-intensity exercise that are very important that are going to drive your performance needle. But having a hierarchy. In harder sessions and easier sessions, A workouts and B workouts, key sessions and supporting workouts, are gonna facilitate recovery embedded on a day-to-day and week-to-week basis, really important for you. It's going to elevate your performance. Yes, movement can be and should be recovered two, three, or four days, of every single week.
Matt Dixon 32:22
A second thing and the movement that we're going to talk about is post-dinner, you have your big meal of the day and go for a walk after dinner, there is a tremendous amount of emotional and physical benefits to this, including, the way, management of your insulin levels, key to your metabolic health. But I would argue that to foster better recovery and improve your opportunity for greater sleep at night, going for a walk after dinner is a great habit. And optimally, you would do it outside, and yes, she can walk in the snow and the rain just bundle up please My precious. And even better if it's social. Go and do it with someone. A lot of fun. It's really good. Get a buddy, your partner, and make it a habit, it's helpful. That's what I'm gonna tell you under the sports banner. Of course, there's much more to it. But under life performance, if you just integrate those couple of things, it's going to help you. Let's think about life performance. Because this is where the real power is: Sleep.
Matt Dixon 33:30
There are whole podcast episodes on sleep. So, and we've done it and we will do more of it, so I'm not going to dig into too many details. But I should say at least give you a couple of elements here. Firstly, we care about quantity and quality. Those are the two factors when we think about sleep. So there are a couple of things that we can talk about optimizing sleep, and I'm not going to give it all away today. But I'll give you a couple. To foster improvement in sleep quality. Go to bed at the same time every night, give or take. That's a really good habit and it sets the system up on that rhythm, the circadian rhythm. And that's going to really help you. Secondly, don't eat too close to bedtime. Try and have your last major meal two to three hours before bed. As we like to say, Purple Patch, the kitchen closes right around 7 pm, going to bed at 9 pm, 10 pm, restore get all the way through. I don't think you need me to tell you to get at least seven hours every night. That should be the habit. Sometimes you're going to have pretty poor quality sleep sometimes you're going to have less sleep, but over a habitual component over the long term, that's what we want to get out to. Now there's a lot more in sleep. And we can go through sleep hygiene, but I'm not going to do it today. I just want to prioritize that sleep quality is as important as sleep quantity.
Matt Dixon 35:02
Now there's something else that you can integrate into your lifestyle recovery as well, that we should all be doing if we care about being our best. Performance resets in the middle of the day, aka, little naps. These are grossly underutilized and undervalued. But they are direct and I mean, direct line performance catalysts. And on top of it, contrary to your belief, they're going to improve the quality of your sleep at night. Now, what I'm asking for here is 10, 12, 15 minutes, no more, okay? Find a quiet space, with no screens, shut your eyes, rest, and rejuvenate. You might fall asleep, you might not. But what you're going to enjoy is a spike in growth hormone, greater adaptations, and a boost in productivity for the next four to five hours. And this is peer-reviewed. So think about that an investment of 10 to 15 minutes, that is going to directly improve your energy, your cognitive functioning, everything that you bring your engagement to the next four to five hours of your work or whatever you're engaged in. Why would you not engage in that? Oh, I don't have time for that. It's not appropriate. You know what? Go and hide in cubicles? 10 To 15 minutes, max, that's all you need to do.
Matt Dixon 36:30
All right. What about nutrition? Well, we just did a whole episode on this. So I'm not going to dig into nutrition too much outside of a reminder, post Workout protein, really important brings down cortisol, facilitates adaptations, and boosts recovery. Super. Hydration, you might remember from last week, two to three liters of fluids across the day, boosting your immune system, boosting your productivity and cognitive function, kick it off, right when you wake up, when you've been dehydrated from that good quality of sleep you've had, get in a liter of fluids to kick it off. Really, really good stuff. If you're interested in digging into some key habits that are going to facilitate recovery and amplify performance go back to last week's show. So we're not going to dig into that too much today.
Matt Dixon 37:18
But I do want to address one more thing in a lifestyle recovery. And this is one that many of the folks that I work with do embrace and it is potent: meditation. Peer reviewed, this has gone from woo-woo back in the day to now an accepted performance enhancer. And it is a key component to it. Very individually an option but a practice of meditation will improve and assist with your mindset control and stress reduction. Okay, now, this is more than just downloading an app. Okay, you don't want to download that app where that guy whispers in your ear and he sounds a lot like me is just a smarter version. No, don't just follow Simon, that's great. But to be really effective, this should truly become a practice. Now, we won't talk about meditation. Although as I talk about this, in today's show, I do feel that we should probably get an expert on meditation and talk about it on the show because I think it is a powerful performance catalyst. And it's a good practice to engage in if you're so inclined. So that's the bucket or the category of lifestyle. Now, what else is there? Well, it turns out there's quite a bit. There are a lot of other options to facilitate recovery. But this becomes an important part of the show here. Because only if you absolutely master and nail some of the habits around your exercise and movement, and you prioritize and action, really good quality of sleep, great habits in hydration, great habits across nutrition, and you get those sustainably up there and you boost your platform of health, it is from that base that you can consider actually integrating other stuff. And so if you are integrating all the habits that I've talked about so far, you've got your building blocks, and it is only then that you should even begin to worry yourself about the aspects around the modalities.
Matt Dixon 39:30
So what are the modalities you ask? Cold plunges, heat - such as a sauna and hot tubs, bodywork and massage theraguns, stretching, all good. There's nothing wrong with them. Let's take cold plunges, for example, they feel good. They wake you up. They give you a dopamine hit. Yes, there is a hormonal boost. But by the way, there's a hormonal boost with exercise and funny movies as well. Okay, They're not the game changer. They're just simply not. There are things that you can choose to add on with no compromise, and many people report feeling good, and there is some science behind it but that doesn't make you a recovery machine. That's something that you add on top of really good sleep, really good nutrition, really good hydration, et cetera. What about heat, sauna, and hot tubs, same thing, great, boosts a little bit of the blood volume, facilitates relaxation, and a little bit of stress management. But just because you hop in the hot tub doesn't make you a recovery machine. Bodywork and massage - fantastic. Really good stuff. You light down for an hour, that's really great. Some mental rejuvenation and some tissue help. But it's not a cover-up of really poor habits in the other areas. In other words, across anything that falls under the category of modalities, and then knock yourself out, utilize it. None of it's gonna hurt. But they are not your building blocks of performance. And if you get anything out of today, get that. Okay? Sport, lifestyle, the king's ransom of stuff, and then the modalities - do it if you want. It's not a game-changer. Even though they can sell stuff, even you get all those quacks and the longevity expert saying 'Oh, cold plunge. That's the catalyst.' No, it's nice to have, but it's built on top of positive habits.
Matt Dixon 41:38
And that ladies and gentlemen, is your performance base layer. And it sounds like a lot. But let me simplify it for you. Number one, step away from the demands of work and life occasionally to rejuvenate. And leaders, lead in this area. Set up a performance culture, without the expectation of your employees having 24/7 access, where you're always on, when you're on vacation, you need to stay tethered. No, allow, and encourage a reset. Set up communication standards and expectations. Encourage people to rest because you're going to reap the rewards. Not only your employees will be happier and more committed, but they're also going to be more productive. And so stepping away number one, number two, make sleep a priority and follow through on it. Don't just say 'Yeah, it's important.' Live it. Eat well, eat plenty. Don't forget to hydrate and proudly take a mini rest every single lunchtime. Embrace a little bit of walking and then if you master those, go and hop in a cold plunge. Enjoy a sauna or hot tub. If it makes you happy. There's nothing wrong with it. It's great. And how many people can master that? Well, right now I see about 10% of people mastering it - 10%. 90% of us have room to grow. Think about it as a growth opportunity. That is good news because we can all get better.
Matt Dixon 43:09
All right, so then very briefly, what about athletes? You're an endurance athlete. Well, all of your recovery practices are built on top of this performance-based layer. And we've got a few nuances that I think are worthy of talking about today. First, in an athletic sense, offseason, because at the time of this recording, that's where the majority of our athletes are, quote, offseason. offseason has an incredibly important role in your longitudinal long-term recovery. Okay, folks fall into the binary trap of thinking that an athlete's life is always on. You're either a serious athlete, or you're not. And a point of confusion of this, I think comes out of the word that I always talk about as a powerful word in performance, evolution: consistency. That's a magic word. And it is, it's a powerful word. But too many people join the wrong dots here and think what consistency means is that you're all in all the time. That's not the case. I'll give you an example. Right now Purple Patch athletes are in the middle of a most critical training phase that we call the offseason. Okay? Now, I often label this as the most important block of work to predict performance breakthroughs in athletes for the year ahead. And it is a block of work, where we're looking to build a foundation of tissue resiliency, upgrade their skills, and boost their high-end. So some high-intensity training here, but it's also a phase of training that allows rejuvenation. And so, to facilitate that, the training load should be less. You should actually be doing less work, you should have a greater capacity to reset emotionally. And that is a critical part of then being able to, quote, turn up the volume, turn up the training load in the following months of the offseason. And it's a hugely important component. And so right now even now just this morning, as I record this, we did some very high-intensity training on the bike, generally, there shouldn't really be an overload in fatigue right now, it's the reverse. The rhythm of training right now should enable us to refresh, to heal, to repair, to freshen up mentally and physically. You are recharging and fully restoring your physical mental hormonal capacity. And you do it for months. Over a 12-month year, you're going to be always on structure, always consistent. But one-quarter of those three months, a specific around preparing the body to train and rejuvenating hand in hand. And that's offseason. And I say this, I can't tell you how many athletes just cut structure completely and go random, go rogue at this most critical phase, and how many others more just completely ignore it and keep plowing on driving forward, churning out fatigue enduring work. And both sets of those athletes are busy embracing performance sabotage, Recovery has meaning guys, it's a performance catalyst, remember, so offseason, you got to nail it, you got to stay structured, but you gotta rejuvenate at the same time.
Matt Dixon 46:46
Now beyond that 10,000-foot lens on the day-to-day and week to week remember that we categorize recovery into three main categories: sports life modalities. So let's just flush over them. Because we already talked about it in life performance for the most part. In sport, the key aspects, you want to ensure are two main things: Number one - to facilitate consistency of effective training, you need to ensure that each week is structured in key and supporting workouts. And in the recovery lens, those athletes who do great in the key workouts and ultimately achieve better performance are the ones who can embrace the low-intensity stuff. Two to four days of really low-stress training over any week amplifies your performance levels in those key workouts. That's what recovery looks like in sports. Secondly, you want to ensure that every 10 to 14 days, you've got a couple of days, maybe three days for some athletes, four days of consistent low-stress intensity, or training in a row. Really important. And then finally, as I just talked about, absolutely nail your offseason without going rogue don't go random. That's all I'm going to talk about with sport. What about life? Well, nutrition, is a huge aspect. We discussed it last week, go back and listen, but absolutely critical. It is the catalyst for your recovery as it relates to sport, sleep and naps, meditation, we just talked about incredible performance - and one - and important - and one more that I'm going to add for athletes. And it does extend to broader life: be social, engage. Recovery amplifies with connectivity to others. It's important. So if you're flying solo, I would shift the lens. I would embrace training with others. So what about modalities? The truth is, it's just like life. You're not recovering properly, just because you foam roll or stretch or cold plunge. In fact, for an athlete, you need to be, particularly for an endurance athlete, really cognizant and cautious with modalities. And so aspects such as stretching, theragun, cold plunges - we got to ensure that you don't A create an injury or B limit your physiological adaptations. Let me dig in. Many athletes are layering on a high training load, which is of course going to induce some fatigue, you want to get ahead of injuries. But at the very first signal of tightness, maybe your hamstrings just talking a little bit, or your Achilles is feeling a little bit tight, many athletes think I need to fix this and they get out their little vibrating gun and they hammer away at that hamstring or Achilles and they get their thumbs and they dig in and they stretch and they stretch and they end up accidentally creating so much trauma, that that little spasm, that little tightness becomes an injury. And so we want to be very, very cautious at the over-application of modalities, particularly around where the symptoms are. Because 99 times out of 100, if your hamstrings are tight, that's where you're feeling it. But it's originating from somewhere up the chain, or maybe lower down the chain. Maybe it's your lower back being tight, your shoulders from too much time, on a bicycle, in a car, at a desk, whatever it might be. And so don't just hammer modalities, stretching, your thumbs, foam, rolling, et cetera, on the symptoms, you want to be cautious. And then second to that is the modalities around compromising your adaptations. We create trauma, through training, that creates inflammation. And it's through that inflammatory process, that the body yields adaptations with rest. But if we jump into a cold plunge, immediately following every single workout, it reduces the inflammation and therefore impairs the body's ability to adapt. And so you work hard, you suffer, you get ready to adapt, and then you put something in the way - cold plunging, ice baths, et cetera. Just allow the body to breathe, and build your recovery more on postworkout fueling, giving it enough daily calories, prioritizing sleep and rejuvenation, your performance resets in the middle of the day, keep it simple, keep it boring, that's what the adaptations are there. And that's what your building blocks of recovery are. And so if you are going to introduce modalities, it's incremental, and you need to understand how they work and when you should apply them, without compromising your adaptations and without amplifying your risk of further injury.
Matt Dixon 52:04
And consider that then you are empowered to embrace recovery. And so now, folks, throughout four shows, we've gone through each one of our pillars, endurance, strength, nutrition, and everything that falls under it, and now today, recovery. Next week, we close our series out, and it's going to be my favorite, the high-performance mindset, building the right mindset strategies and habits for you to become highly effective across any arena. This is where we're going to separate the wheat from the chaff. Have a great week. See you next time.
Matt Dixon 52:43
Guys, thanks so much for joining. 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 on YouTube, and you will find it there and you can 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. 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 on 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, and keep smiling doing whatever you do. Take care.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
recovery, performance, athletes, rejuvenation, modalities, work, sleep, adaptations, habits, sport, purple, team, patch, talk, cognitive function, training, embrace, life, exercise, important