REBROADCAST: Shifting Focus for Mature Athletes
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Welcome to the Purple Patch Podcast!
This week, we're revisiting one of the most insightful interviews we've done here on the Purple Patch Podcast. In this episode we're exploring the topic of mature athletes. These athletes are just as ambitious and goal-driven as younger ones, but they often have a deeper and more meaningful purpose beyond winning races and setting personal records.
We received a great question from a podcast listener who has participated in triathlons for over 20 years. Despite still being ambitious, she now has three kids and is seeking advice on approaching the sport from a new perspective and adjusting her training. This is a common challenge for many athletes, not just in triathlon.
We've dedicated a whole show to addressing this question and hopefully, we provide helpful guidance for any mature athlete looking to optimize their mindset, strategy, and training for performance gains. The episode is divided into three parts. The first part discusses "perspective" and building a new relationship with sports. It provides context for understanding how to adjust your approach to sports and how it may differ from your younger and more competitive years.
If you have any questions about the Purple Patch program, feel free to reach out at info@purplepatchfitness.com.
Episode Timecodes:
00-1:07 Promo
1:36-5:20 Intro
5:28-8:00 Q & A Start
8:16-20:03 Part 1: Establishing Perspective
20:08-33:28 Part 2: Evolving Your Training
33:35-end Part 3: Supporting Habits
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Transcription
Matt Dixon 00:00
Today's episode is for the AARP anarchists, as we love to call them. It's all around performance for the mature athlete. But we don't just coach folks that are mature. Of course, if you have a desire to improve, to up level, and then purple patch is for you. And as you listen to today's show and you draw the lessons from it, if you're inspired to continue the conversation, if you want to understand anything around purple patch programming, whether it's tri squad, whether it's our run squad program, you're preparing for a marathon, or if you want to get deeply engaged with a one to one coaching relationship, feel free to reach out. We offer complimentary consultations to help us understand whether we're a good fit for you, you're a good fit for us. We'll understand your situations. We'll provide advice. The worst that can happen is you're going to get a whole bunch of recommendations and tips of how to amplify your performance journey. Or, of course, the best that can happen is we end up partnering, and we take your performance to a whole new level, while also amplifying your life. Feel free to reach out to us. Info@purplepatchfitness.com will set up a complimentary needs assessment. All right, enjoy the show. 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 01:37
And welcome to the purple patch podcast as ever, your host, Matt Dixon, and today we're doing something a little different. We're actually going to do a rerun of a show, and the reason for that is, over the last few weeks, we've been flooded with a lot of questions and a lot of accolades, to be frank, around the performance of so many of what we call, lovingly, our AARP anarchists, one of my favorite athletes, Pat Romano, just won his age group act for the first time, Oregon, 70.3 but more than that, he did a PR, and this is a guy that's been in the sport for 14 years, a PR at the age of 60, Panos cocoulas, the same applied the fastest marathon and half marathon he's done in his late 50s. The stories are numerous athletes that are leveling up as they're aging up, and that is a key thing. So we thought, You know what? Let's revisit a topic. But rather than me just treading over world trodden ground, we've got some really, really good content of a podcast that we did last year, and so we want to repackage it and send it back out to you for a listen. And this serves as a great reminder that just because you age up, it doesn't mean you need to slow down or give up on your ambitions. It's not about just trying to not slow down. It's about pursuing excellence, getting better, self improvement, even, dare I say, going faster. But the truth is, the how is the thing that might need to evolve. You see how you trained, even if you're already seasoned athlete as a 30 or 40 year old is very, very different as you start to move into your 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond. We have athletes at purple patch who are listen to this 85 years of age and still completing 85 years of age half marathons last year, a half Iron Man. And you know what? And he doesn't want his name to be shared, but you know his frustration that he didn't go quite as fast as what he did when you were 70. How do we keep getting performance out of folks when they're maturing? Well, guess what? It's not mystical. It's not magical. It's smart, pragmatic coaching that is appropriate for you as you mature. And so I'm going to give you the episode today, if the episode resonates, we'd like to hear more about how we do it. Well, we've got a really, really fun section of training upcoming, which is, in our opinion, the starting point, the golden starting point we call off season, or how we refer to it in purple patch postseason, because that is the foundational habit development, highly flexible, really free training structure that sets the foundation that is the catalyst for any level mature or otherwise, to take their performance to the next level. And so if you want to understand more about our off season training or our training globally, feel free to reach out to info at purple patch fitness.com we'll set up a needs assessment. We'll give you more advice and guidance. After all, look, this is about improvement. It's not about becoming a pro athlete. It's not about ego driven performance. It's about you continuing to grow, to evolve, to learn how to become. Better, and it's really fun when you also go faster. And so I give you this one today. It is for the maturing athletes. But if you're not mature, guess what you will be soon, and it has a bunch of nuggets and information that you can draw to your performance. So I would argue this is for everyone. I give you, without further ado, the meat and potatoes.
Matt Dixon 05:28
And so here we are, once again this week, doing a little bit of a modified Q and A one question, one answer, with me adding a little bit of additional context around this. So this is from a long time pod listener from Canada, Claire and Claire, thank you very much for writing in and sorry. It took me two weeks to get back to you outside of the initial email, but here it is today. This show is for you, and I hope that it's helpful for the rest of the listeners. Here we go. Here is Claire's question that she answer asked. She said, hello from Canada, and thank you for your podcast. I love your perspective on integrating sport into life. My question is this, I've been racing as an amateur triathlete for many years. I did my first triathlon when I was 20 years old, and now I'm just about to turn 42 I haven't raced every single year because I had three babies in that time, but my total time in the sport is nearly 22 years. Fantastic stuff. Great longevity. Claire, I never really expected myself to grow older in this sport, but I love it so much that I want to keep doing it as long as my body will hold up. Do you guys have any ideas of how to shift your focus as you start to get older and slower in parentheses, so that you're less focused on the outcomes and the times and more focused on goals that are still motivating and achievable as you age in the sport, how do you keep getting joy from doing triathlon when you just keep getting slower? Well, it's a great question, and it's a challenge that many people face, of course, and I would say that a good portion of incoming purple patch athletes are in very, very similar situations to you. Claire and and it's great. In fact, I'll never, I'll never forget a good friend of mine now, Joe, who came to me when he was 49 years of age, and he said, Oh, I'm almost 50. I guess my game is just trying to not slow down too much. And I said, F that, let's make you faster. And he did his fastest half Iron Man at the age of 56 years of age, maybe even 57 years of age. And he just keeps improving. Now. He did it by shifting his focus, by evolving the mindset a little bit, and changing up how I approach the whole sport. But it's really not about getting faster, is it? And so what I want to do is break down a few pieces of advice, and want to do this into three sections. First is perspective, how you actually build the relationship with the sport. The second, I'm going to dig into a little bit around training, because I think they'll be helpful. And then third, I'm going to extend the conversation a little bit and just touch on habits to close out the show. Okay? So three sections, perspective, then we're going to go into training, then we're going to go into habits. Alrighty. So with that, Barry, let's lock and load. Let's do it part one, guys, perspective, building your relationship with your sport as you start to mature. Now, as pointed out, there is no need to dilute your desire or your ambition as you start to mature in the sport. It just might evolve a little bit. One of the things that I see is too many maturing athletes that become, for lack of a better phrase, become defensive in their mindset, and so they start to just fall into the trap of, Oh, I'm just trying not to slow down. I'm just going to shift from not competing but just completing or just giving up on competitive drive altogether, maybe I should just exercise and stay healthy.
Matt Dixon 07:28
Why should I take on a challenge now there is a inevitability to this game. As you start to mature, your body will slow down over the increasing years. We can't beat physiology, but we sure as heck, can slow it down, and we can evolve our focus and our emphasis of where we train and how we train to create a catalyst to retain levels, or even sometimes improve levels. But there is a physiological truth, as we do get older, we are going to ultimately lose strength. Have to endure increasing time of recovery necessary between hard bouts, so therefore, have a reduced capacity to train hard all the time. We're also going to have a reduction of our ability to produce power, and unless really nurtured, we're probably going to lose some joint mobility, a little bit of coordination and balance. So all of these. Things ultimately will start to come a little bit undone as we do mature, and the truth of that is, ultimately, it's a game where, yeah, you're not going to go as fast, but that doesn't mean that ambition should erode, that growth still shouldn't be a predominant part of your mindset. We can keep improving if we evolve. And there's a few options for this of how you shift your relationship and start to ignite imagination, excitement, ambition, growth, challenge, all of these things that I believe are really, really healthy and do not have to be defined by finished place, how fast you go, what you qualify for, etc.
Matt Dixon 10:51
And so the first part of this is maybe spending a little bit of time really defining or redefining potentially your purpose. And let me just give you an example here, because I can't give you the direct answers to this Claire or anyone else, but my guess is, if I had to guess, in your 20s, as a youth doing this sport, I'm sure that the mission, the purpose, was performance in the strictest sense. How fast can I go? Where can I come? What are the podiums I can maybe Chase? What finish lines can I get across? So it was very much performance driven in the way that we tend to look at things generally. But this is a really nice time as you start to enter your 40s and beyond. By the way, I think you can still get faster, but it's good time to actually reconnect with your why in sport, and perhaps there's a broader perspective on the reason for you doing this, and really what defines success. Because what came across in your question is you love it. It provides satisfaction, and it's a challenge, and that's really, really healthy for us. We grow under challenge, but I'm sure it might evolve to where your purpose could extend beyond racing. Perhaps there's a part of you that wants to ensure that you're an inspiration, a role model for your kids, and maybe that's a part of the reason for doing it. I'm sure that you probably want to have in your 40s into 50s, into 60s, 70s and beyond that you hope to have the highest quality of life possible, so that you can go and explore and do anything you want in your life without needing to wait for assistance to get upstairs or whatever it might be so there's probably a longevity and quality of life component to it. In other words, really defining and understanding why you love this sport and what success looks like makes it immeasurably easier to begin to then set goals that fit under that banner, because a goal is really only beneficial if it guides you towards your why your purpose? We're going to do a whole show on goals versus purpose, but a lot of people just choose events because they're in front of them. All right. This year, I'm going to go and do Oceanside Half Ironman, and I'm going to go and do the World Championships, but quite often without really understanding your purpose or why. And so I think that you're in a place right now that there might be a shift of what you hope to draw out of the sport and what success looks like. And so that's the first little process you want to go through. And you don't have to come to an answer over 15 minutes with a piece of paper in front of you, but it can be an emerging process where you really start to identify, what do I love? Why am I doing this? What does success look like? Therefore, what goals can I put into place that are going to bridge me to that? So that's one component that I think is a really healthy thing for you to go through. The second is a consideration of maybe broadening out your race choices and the type of challenges that you take on. So I encourage you absolutely continue with triathlon. It sounds like you love the sport, and that's fantastic. You might just add some novel or different challenges in there, something that's going to elicit the stuff that's really healthy, get you out of your comfort zone, maybe elicit a little bit of fear. Can I really go and do this and create a different set of challenges for you to go and get ready? And this could be, quote, anything. It could be an ultra distance trail run. Maybe it's a really challenging, multi day riding, bike ride, bright trip through Europe or the White Mountains in the summer, whatever it might be, even a huge hike over back to back days or multiple days. I just had friends that came back from the Chamonix area, four or five days, massive hiking, really different. A very different type of challenge, and it elicited a different goal, a different challenge, a different opportunity for growth. It could even be something completely seemingly counter to your sport and identity as a triathlete. It could be a Spartan type of race, or a high rocks, which are very popular and trendy right now. These types of components, they're all really, really healthy. The key is it can really help freshen things up. It's not about you changing or shifting your emphasis.
Matt Dixon 16:28
You still, still should do triathlons, but still integrating something else in you'll be amazed at how fresh and exciting that can be. I would also recommend that, if you're under the triathlon banner, maybe do some different types of races. So perhaps before you did races that you could maybe do really well at because they were flatter and faster and you can get a PR, but maybe you go and do cool races in cool places, a really challenging race, something that's way out there. I had someone that used to love to go and do Arizona and Florida, and we flipped it up and he went and did the Norseman race. I mean, talk about a challenge, but a really different type of challenge that created all of the reward. It created the fear the challenge and everything else but the pride and the satisfaction of completing it. I just lived this a little bit a couple of years ago. You might have followed it when I followed it when I went and did the ort route, seven days of riding through the Alps. Really different, really challenging, hard, but goodness me, did it freshen things up. And so in other words, these types of broadening of the lens of what it means to be a multi sport athlete can do make things really different, really fun, really fresh. And the good news about it is that there's no reference point. You're not going to have any comparison, and it's going to create that healthy fear, as I talked about, get you out of your comfort zone and pretty much flipping things around a little bit. It's probably going to be really good for your body. And so with these two options, I think those are two gateways where you can start to form a new relationship with the sport and you can still continue to chase improvements and growth. Now I would add one more, a little bonus that I really like. If we hold hands, look ahead and say, Okay, you're probably not in a situation where you're going to radically improve your power, your strength, or even your endurance. After all, you've got a long, long history of this sport, fair enough. But can you take on a different challenge? Can you actually leverage all of your history in the sport, all of that training. And can you get more cunning? Can you be smarter? Can you lean on and leverage your experience to keep going faster and faster relative to your younger self and relative to less experienced and younger athletes that you're going to be competing? About In other words, how can you stay competitive and chasing your personal performance goals by improving how you race? You can get smarter with your distribution of your fitness. Maybe evolved your hydration and nutrition. And certainly because 99% of the people that I meet when they come into purple patch can radically improve their speed return relative to their fitness by getting better at The Art of Racing, Terrain Management, a shift in your training approach, which we'll go into in part two, better pacing, even better supporting habits. And if that's igniting a little spark of inspiration. Guess what? It can be really fun. It's a question, how do I go as fast or faster with less what a challenge, but also what an accessible challenge? And so that's the relationship and the perspective side. Now let's take a little break. Purple patch tri squad doesn't just train you for your events. It makes you a better athlete. We make you faster. We help you become smarter. You get the results that you chase while also showing up better in life. Let me tell you, there's no other program specifically tailored for the demands of time-starved people like you. There's certainly no other program with such a proven methodology and results across all levels of the sport, and we are excited to help you. Have a whole purple patch team of coaches, including myself and a global community of purple patch athletes all there to offer support, accountability and, of course, guidance along the way. Join us. It's a really simple process. Set up a complimentary consultation. We'll understand your needs and your challenges, and we'll help you choose the right program for you. You can get registered and on plan within minutes, and we're so confident that you'll love it that. Even give you a 30 day money back guarantee. We're looking forward to helping you, and here's the word transform. All right, let's get back on with the show.
Matt Dixon 20:11
So the mature athlete part two, let's dig into the second component. We've established a really good mindset, perspective and relationship with the sport, but how should you evolve your training? That's the second big part of it, because the truth is, for any mature athlete, what worked for you in your 20s is radically different than what your body needs now. And that's good news, because all of the years that you've done and Claire, in your question, you outline that you've been in the sport for, give or take, 22 years, and all of those years of training are not going to physiologically evaporate. You've got this amazing foundation, and it requires a little bit like nurturing a garden. It requires a little bit of nurturing and addressing and refilling, but it's not going to crumble. You've got this great platform to build from, but now I recommend that you begin to get smart. You evolve how you approach the sport from a training standpoint, to your needs and your physiology now and for the years ahead. And so for you, Claire, it's worth noting you are also 42 years of age, as you outline. And so not only have you got this foundation of really good fitness, but now your body demands something else. In addition, you've got a second component of consideration specific to you and women like you and your profile, and that's the fact that you're 42 and you are either right now or just about to over the coming years, going to enter effectively, what is a second puberty, and that's perimenopause. And this has a layered impact as well that locks together with where you're at as a maturing athlete, but also demands a shifting approach so that you can navigate the years that you're going to be now going through perimenopause, the best way possible to offset many of the symptoms and side effects and help you perform and thrive, not just in sport, but also in broader life. And so these two things come together in the mature athlete perimenopause, and it demands a shift. And so I'm going to give you a few tips. Now. We're going to do a whole show on perimenopause, but I'm just going to give you a few tips for male females. Doesn't really matter for approaching training for the mature athlete, okay, the first, and this is the important part, is an under focus, a diminishing focus on big endurance work. It's okay to do some all righties. There is some over distance and longer distance training. That's okay. But the truth is that in your current situation, long, slow distance or endurance work globally is not going to provide the same return on investment that it did when you're in your 20s. It's just the truth. It doesn't give the same physiological stimulus. It's not going to give the same ROI. And so while you can have some it shouldn't be predominant the first thing that you put on your training plan. So we're going to de emphasize endurance. It doesn't mean that you're going to lose resiliency or your capacity to race really, really well. But it's not the first thing. It's not the foundation. In fact, your foundation is the other end, your foundation of your training should be, and I can say it in a single word, strength, strength and conditioning is a critical non negotiable component. What does that mean for you? Well, first building your training program. Claire, I can't pretend to build your training program on this show right now, but I would say that the first thing that I would put on the week is at least two, if not three, very specific high load strength training sessions. That's the first thing that is your bull's eye. Now, even though you're getting ready for an endurance event, strength is first, and then you wrap, in your case, triathlon, swim, bike and run sessions around it. So right at the heart of it, it's a shift in approach. It's a shift in your mindset. You don't do swim, bike and run, probably some long distance training in there, of course, in each of those disciplines, and then say, supplementary, yeah, I'm going to do some strength. It is I do strength, and then I do some endurance work around it. Okay, so that's a radical shift, but that is absolutely the driver for you becoming the best that you can be in the sport and also in. Five the third component is of the swim, bike, run, and any other type of modalities that you do, of that type of cardiovascular training you want to, at least once or twice a week, focus on very high intensity, getting your heart rate up to threshold or above, hopefully, with repeated intervals and driving that high end physiological capacity once a week, minimum, maybe twice a week. So suddenly you think about key training sessions, two strength workouts, at least, if not three, one or two high, high intensity workouts. And that's it. That's really it. Surrounding that is some supportive work and a touch of endurance. And that's such a radical shift than if I was working with an 1819, 20 year old, 25 year old, to say, Okay, let's build the Mars. Let's build the foundation. We need to get the body ready. We need to build up our metabolic efficiency and all of these components. It's a radically different approach, and it's gonna be really powerful for you. It's gonna be fresh, it's gonna be interesting. It's gonna be different. Okay,
Matt Dixon 26:12
a second component of training is a little bit more abstract, but I actually think is really important and it's ignored. But I think there are really powerful benefits, particularly for mature athletes, and that's staying connected with others. It cannot be a lone wolf journey, and for maturing athletes that perhaps have a broader and even deeper purpose on why they're doing this. The more that you can take on this journey with others, the better the results are going to be. The more enjoyment you're going to get out of it, the faster you're going to go. If you can have systems of support and accountability, not just that you can draw from others, that you can provide to others as well, it becomes more meaningful. And in fact, I would even Claire thinking about your situation with all of the experience that you've got. What about an opportunity to actually mentor someone else, where that's going to help you get a beyond yourself and why you're doing it, but actually provide a little bit of meaning you're going to help others benefit. And you know what happens quite often when you give the gift of wisdom, expertise, mentorship to others you receive it's true, and it often drives, I've seen it many times, your own individual performance. And so as you think about this, you've got this radical shift of training structure built around strength. And then my second recommendation on training is to actually get out and engage, get a system of support, maybe in your local community, maybe you become a part of a team like purple patch, and you engage with others, you provide support, you do some mentorship. And I'm not talking about coaching others. I'm not saying, hey, you need to go and start coaching, but you can get a friend to say, I've never done a 5k Great. Do a 5k Come on. Let's do it together, or try and help, whether it's kids, whether it's others, along the journey, as a part of purple patch, we have a lot of highly engaged, very busy, time-starved people that work in our private community, that we have our hub, as we call it, providing counsel, support, wisdom to their peers, and it's not paid. It's that they're giving the wisdom of their time in the sport, and those are the athletes that are actually receiving a ton that end up having a great experience, that have that deeper meaning. And so shifting your training to helping others can really, really be helpful. And so if you are for the ground up building your training program, let's just come back to the core training, because I'm sure you want to say, hey, how do I actually do it? Here's how I would do it, as I talked about strength training at least twice a week. High Intensity, very, very demanding, at least once or twice a week, probably twice a week. I would then think about, where am I getting? My mobility work, my balance, my coordination, so overall athleticism. You want to keep that engaged. Then I would add in some really, and you've heard me talk with this about this phrase before, Soul filling, easy endurance, so shorter sessions that are conversational fun, when I go for my run with my dog, Millie, and listen to my podcast, that type of stuff. And then finally, at the most, once or twice a week, across the three disciplines, doing more classical endurance training or work that's building up our muscular resilience, our longer distance stuff once or twice a week at most. That's it. That's your training program. Okay? And then finally, under the training section is something that I alluded to a little bit with the relationship of sport I touched on this. But get smart with your training.
Matt Dixon 29:12
Just become. A better athlete. This is a huge opportunity for you. I'm sure you've heard me talk about it in this show, but become better at Terrain Management when you're running, when you're riding your bike, try and yield more speed from your fitness. There isn't a better example of this than what I've just witnessed over the last 12 months, where we integrated our new video based about Bike Platform. You've heard me talk about it, and we have had and it's honestly true this countless people in 50s, 60s and 70s get faster. Should actually get faster. They're becoming better bike riders. This is some powerful stuff, and it's a huge opportunity. So if you're only stuck in the mindset of chasing fitness power, you're facing an uphill battle. But if you say, All right, I'm going to do everything I can to retain this, and I'm going to make sure that I don't slow down and lose too much power, and I stay strong, but now I'm going to use it more in a different way, in a smarter way, you got faster. Do you remember my friend Joe? He got faster because of it. Now, this is a guy that played in the NFL. He was very fit, very powerful. And from 49 to 56 he got faster in 5k 10k half marathon, half Iron Man, Olympic distance, everything he got faster, he didn't get stronger, he didn't get more powerful. He used his fitness more. And so I hope that helps from a training standpoint. Now I should say this step, this part of the the answer, Claire, for you and anyone else that's listening that's in a similar situation, it's probably worth you doing a deeper dive here. And so Claire, or anyone else listening, it's probably beneficial for you to set up, set up an individual coaching consultation, because one of the things that a purple patch coach or myself can do is help you frame all this and really get granular, to create a strategic plan and all of this stuff. And so feel free to reach out to us. Info@purplepatchfitness.com if it would help you, we're happy to set aside 30 minutes, 60 Minutes paid consultation, create the roadmap ahead. I think you'll find it really beneficial. All right, when we come back, we're going to talk about habits, tri squad. It is so much more than a training plan. This is a triathlon program designed from the ground up, specifically for athletes like you. And you know what the best thing this is human coaching. We've got to prove a methodology that's delivered multiple animal to World Champions, more than 1500 qualifiers to world championship events, countless PRs and first time finishes. And the best news, this is a program that integrates into your life. And so not only are you going to get faster, we're pretty good at doing that, but it also super fuels your performance across all other aspects of life. You want to be more resilient, adaptable, have better focus, have the ability to process information, to show up in all areas of life. That's what we care about. That's what we try and help you be your guide, to help you transform your performance across all arenas. Feel free email us at info@purplepatchfitness.com, you can set up a complimentary consultation. We'll get you on program within minutes, and if you don't like it, give you your money back. You got four you got 30 days to test run it. What's to lose? Come on, get involved. All right. Now let's finish the show up on with the show. All right, folks, let's close it out part three of Claire's Wonderful question today, we are talking about the mature athlete, but we're just going to shine the hot light on supporting habits. So it goes a little bit beyond the question here. But to close this session out, I think it's worth spending five minutes on supporting habits. What needs to evolve as you're a maturing athlete? Well, the first, and this isn't specific to an ing to a maturing athlete, but I think it's really important, because I often see, as we do start to get a little bit long in the tooth, that we have a drop in a perception of our hunger signals, our thirst signals, and components like that. And so with the assumption that you're still training, you're still ambitious, you're still chasing performance, it's really important that you emphasize eating enough calories of the right type of calories. I can't tell you how many mature athletes accidentally, unconsciously under consume hunger signals drop. You don't have the same catalyst. It's harder to eat, and you end up getting into a chronic cycle of continuing to train hard, perhaps shifting, as we talked about in part two, the emphasis of that training, but under consuming calories that leave you with lower performance yields a fogger fatigue and ultimately not getting results. And you think, I'm slowing down, I'm just. Getting old, but the truth is that you may be just not eating enough calories. Now, if you need support here, of course, we've got our partnership with fuel in a wonderful system that integrates with the training that you're going to do and provides you with the recommendations, not just on the types of foods you should eat, but exactly the amount of calories, so that you can go into your local grocery store, restaurant, whatever you're cooking at home, out of the fridge, and make sure that you're providing enough of the right calories at the right time. Really important. If you want to find out more there, just head to fueling.com/purple patch. Let them know that you heard it on the show, and they will take care of you. Of course, you can always reach out to us as well info@purplepatchfitness.com
Matt Dixon 35:42
We'll be delighted to point you towards some other recommendations around supporting your training with enough calories and nutrition. Complimentary, of course, happy to do that with you if you want some more information on that very, very important topic. Okay, second component that's really important under the banner of nutrition is protein, really critical building block for you. Claire, we talked about going into perimenopause, building around consistent protein in every single meal throughout the day, breakfast, potentially a snack, lunch, potentially a snack, and certainly dinner, ensuring that you're getting 3040, 50 grams of protein for every one of your meals, it's such a critical building block for you. Spread it throughout the day. It should add up to give or take around your body weight in pounds, and ensuring that every time you bring out a dinner plate, breakfast plate, whatever it might be, your plate, the first thing on is your protein. Then you're going to wrap it around with a ton of fiber, lots of vegetables and fruits, and then, in addition to that, plenty of carbohydrates to support your training load, especially post workout, if you want to lower down the cortisol levels post workout, carbohydrates really, really important, of course, also really important in days prior to or on heavier, high load training days that can come in the form of strength or endurance training. So some really important components and habits around nutrition. Okay, let me just highlight everything I said there, eating enough calories at the right time, building your meals around protein, ensuring that every meal has a ton of good fiber in it, in other words, vegetables and fruit, and then making sure that you're throttling your carbohydrate always present to ensure that you're supporting your caloric needs and ensuring that you're getting that post workout fueling in really important, particularly for high level athletes, amateur athletes, mature athletes the topic of the day, and anyone else doing sport or caring about performance globally, all right, so that's kind of the nutrition bucket on the habits. Now let's talk about another component, recovery. So this is a critical component for maturing athletes, because our rate of recovery, our body's ability to bounce back is compromised as we mature, and this is systemically. So how long we actually come back to full Hormonal Health? You want to call it that, and also from a muscular scan standpoint, tissue repair takes longer as we age, and so what that means for us is we need to be a little bit more strategic about integrating planned recovery into our training cycles. So the what this looks like on a practical standpoint is, if you're following a training program, you should really embrace, fall in love with going easy in the lighter training sessions I referenced before the soul, filling training, going for a run with my dog, with my podcast or my audio book in my ear, really good stuff, but go freaking easy, and for you, Claire, or anyone else listening, that's a mature athlete, if the legs are just leaden, if the system is tired, maybe convert a run to a walk or a hike or stop for a coffee when you're going for a little bike ride, whatever it might be, but have the courage on the easy sessions to make them soul filling. It's so important for mature athletes, because we have to have the courage to do a little bit less to get as much as we would have done 10 or 15 years ago, I would also, under the banner of recovery, really focus on building great sleep hygiene. Now we discussed this in depth two weeks ago, and so I'm just going to send you back two weeks. In other words, if you want to learn more about how to optimize your sleep, just go back. I break down rem and its ability to process stress. I also discuss deep sleep, where all the growth and adaptations and repair occur. You want to protect those, you want to optimize them. And so it's all about habit development around sleep. Go back a couple of couple of sessions ago. We'll leave the link in the show notes if you didn't hear. It. It's worth listening. It's also worth sharing with your friends. So that's good. And then finally, under recovery is be more willing than ever to integrate a few days in a row of deeper rejuvenation, very, very light training, even sometimes psychologically, having a day off completely where you enable, ultimately, a catalyst for better consistency of effective training. So when you're younger, the body bounces back a little bit quicker, and you can often get away with less time where you're just like, I just need to turn my back on this. As a mature athlete, you've got to have courage to actually integrate a little bit more really, really simple final component, I've got to talk about this on a day to day basis. Hydration massively under discussed. Really important. It is a catalyst to creating a robust immune system. It's a it improves your recovery and tissue health. So in other words, it's igniting your ability to recover quicker. And we've already just talked about that being a compromise factor of getting a mature of being a maturing athlete and tissue health. It's really, really important, and it's also an key component in repair and adaptations. You go and do your strength training the high, high intensity, if you want to get the biggest yield and then you need to have well lubricated muscles. It's a part of the recovery process. And so, of course, all of these habits, there's plenty of crossover here with all age of athletes, but I do think that it has an amplified importance for maturing athletes. And so listeners, I hope that perspective helped. Claire, thank you so much for the question. I hope that gives you a little bit of a runway to get going. If you would like to reach out with any questions that you want. We're going to be doing more Q and A sessions over the coming weeks. We've also got some really fun Q and A sessions with Scott Tindall from fueling around both race fueling and hydration for triathlon and other endurance events, as well as building habits and practices to amplify a daily performance around nutrition and hydration, all of that to come in the coming weeks, but until then, hey, we might be getting a little bit more into the category of mature athletes, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't stay ambitious, keep growing, keep putting up the challenges, because that's how we grow. Folks. I'll see you next time, 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@purplepatchfitness.com, or leave it in the comments of the show at the purple patch page, and we will get you dialed in. We'd love constructive feedback. We are in a growth mindset, as we like to call it, and so feel free to share with your friends. But as I said, Let's build this together. Let's make it something special. It's really fun. We're really trying hard to make it a special experience, and we want to welcome you into the purple patch community with that. I hope you have a great week. Stay healthy, have fun, keep smiling, doing whatever you do, take care.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
mature athletes, performance improvement, purple patch, training strategies, strength training, high intensity workouts, nutrition, recovery, hydration, perimenopause, goal setting, mentorship, race challenges, habit development, athletic potential