Purple Patch Podcast

Underneath the Purple Patch Pillar of Nutrition, there are two main components: Fueling - This encompasses the calories you consume during a workout and immediately following Nutrition - This includes your daily eating habits outside of training including breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. In this episode packed with meaningful and easy-to-implement guidelines, Matt goes into depth on both fueling and nutrition with a case study of a real-life Purple Patch athlete, Mike. Mike is like most age group athletes. He’s a busy executive, but dedicated to his training and achieving high-performance in both work and training. He joined Purple Patch to “get to the next level.” He trains most mornings and is highly motivated to reach his training goals. The biggest problem? Mike doesn’t fuel properly. Matt starts the episode with a discussion on FUELING, the biggest contributor to your success. He answers: Why is fueling during and post-workout so important? What functions does proper fueling serve to my overall p

Athletes often think of recovery as a weakness or liability to their training. We see the hours that the competition appears to be logging and feel compelled to match or even beat it. Unfortunately, our barometer of success is often a simple accumulation of training hours without regard to the quality of those hours or what we do in between. If we do give a thought to recovery, it's usually in the form of a rest day or a little foam rolling after a tough session. But, is this true recovery? Are we really allowing our body to adapt to the training stress?    In this jam-packed episode full of triathlon history and personal stories, Matt defines recovery and teaches you how to integrate it into your training roadmap. It shouldn't merely be an afterthought, as it often is.   You'll Learn: How Matt earned the title of "The Recovery Coach" The story of Ironman Champion, Chris Lieto, and how Matt adapted his training to integrate real recovery during his 2008-2009 season, ultimately leading to a 2nd place Finish a

Ed Baker has most certainly lived an accomplished and fulfilling life. He was captain of his cross country team at Harvard and then went on to Stanford School of Business. While there, he trained and ran in the Olympic Marathon Trials in 2007. Baker’s business credentials are also rather impressive, serving as Head of International Growth at Facebook and then VP of Growth and Product at Uber until the Spring of 2017. What more could one person want to accomplish? What could possibly be next for this elite performer? Triathlon, of course! Ed recently joined the Purple Patch team under the personal direction of Matt Dixon and this conversation takes place while Ed was at the recent Purple Patch Pro Camp in Scottsdale.  Yes, Dixon threw this triathlon newbie to the professional wolves and they had a feast.  They also came away with many insights and lessons for any high-performing individual, and these are the nuggets that Matt and Ed discuss so thoroughly in today’s episode, including the: Benefits of maintain

“Sleep isn’t sexy, but it is a performance enhancer, and the wise leverage it to their advantage.” - Dr. Chris Winter, MD Dubbed "The Sleep Whisperer" by Arianna Huffington, Dr. Chris Winter, MD, is the medical director of the Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine in Virginia and also one of the country's leading sleep researchers. When he is not seeing patients in his private clinic, he is often traveling across time zones to work with professional basketball, baseball, and hockey teams on the undeniable bond between sleep and performance. His new book, The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep Is Broken and How To Fix It will help you understand your own sleep issues and properly incorporate sleep and napping into your life. Skipping sleep shouldn’t be viewed as toughness or a badge of honor, but instead, a performance limiter.  In this conversation with Matt Dixon, Dr. Winter explains: The definitions of both good and poor sleep Why should you buy into sleep as performance enhancement The long-term reperc

Matt dives deep with Carmel Galvin, CHRO of Glassdoor, about integrating high performance, training, and community into a time-starved life.  In Part One of this conversation, Matt and Carmel talk about the evolving work culture of today's generation. There is an undeniable connection between work performance and life. Who you are outside of work is who you are at your job. Galvin discusses how companies like Glassdoor are prioritizing a company culture that enables optimized health, which ultimately produces very loyal employees. Part Two chronicles Carmel's personal performance journey and how multisport training has helped her thrive as a Business Executive, Wife, and Mom. It's inspirational and full of personal moments of overcoming her own deep-rooted fears, obstacles, and getting up, quite literally, when you get knocked down. While she may not be an elite-level athlete, she is, as Matt says, the epitome of high performance because of the way she fully integrates sport into her life. This one is a g

You know it's going to be a good episode when Coach Matt Dixon refers to it as the "Brainiac Pro Edition!" Sonia Bracegirdle, Cecilia Davis-Hayes, and Laurence Delisle are the antithesis of what you might stereotype as a typical professional athlete. Yes, all three are brand new pro athletes starting their journey to world-class, but they have already excelled in many other areas of life. Collectively, their academic, business and sporting accomplishments make up a body of work that is highly impressive even from the loftiest set of standards. In this roundtable discussion from their recent training camp, they discuss the: Personal reasons why they are pursuing this journey of professional sport Benefits and challenges of being a high-achieving individual Important roles that sports played in their academic and business careers Delicate balance of work, school, and training Value of coaches and mentors in school and training Overcoming fears and intimidation as an emerging pro Definitions of success ...and

This week, we are offering you a special edition of two episodes in which Purple Patch pros join Matt for roundtable discussions with professional Ironman triathletes like you've never heard before! In Part 1, Coach Matt moderates this honest discussion with three of his elite pros, Kevin Collington, Laura Siddall, and Sarah Piampiano, about goal-setting, managing fears, training management, race day mindset, definitions of success, and so much more. All three are IRONMAN champions and, yet, they still freely admit that there's so much more to learn.    If you think the life of a professional triathlete is easy or enviable, think again. They work hard - NONSTOP. When the physical training stops, the mental training begins.  Even Matt learned a thing or two about his athletes during this deep dive that touched on several topics: What did their path to world-class performance look like? What components do they possess that have shaped their success? What is their definition of success? Do professional athlete

Matt discusses the first Purple Patch Pillar of Performance:  Endurance.  He covers everything from how to set up your week, execute your training effectively, and consistently nail the basics.  You will hear why the focus of your training should be to achieve the necessary volume in order to receive positive adaptations, but still avoid accumulated fatigue. As he says in this episode, "If training becomes a monkey on your back, you will rip the monkey off." So, how exactly do you set up your training so that it doesn't become a burdensome monkey on your back? Take a listen to find out. :00-:20  Recorded Intro :21-:1:30  Matt's Welcome  1:30-6:25  Word of the Week: Tea 6:35-38:00 Planning Your Endurance Training Season, Executing Your Training, and Nailing the Basics Highlights include: Word of the Week:  Tea -Learn why and how tea can counteract your afternoon slump Mindshift from a preconceived number of training hours to planning with the available hours you do have Developing "Always, Often and Sometime

In this eye-opening episode, Matt goes one-on-one with one of his athletes, Sami Inkinen. Growing up on a farm in Finland, Sami was always intrigued by health, wellness, and athletic performance. He did ride his bike or cross-country ski to-and-from school most days, after all! He moved to the United States in 2003 to attend Stanford Business School, and it's there where he met his friend and business partner, Pete Flint, and, together, they founded Trulia, eventually turning it public. Today, he is the CEO and Founder of Virta Health, a company on a mission to reverse Type 2 Diabetes in 100 million people by 2025. It was a revelation about his own health that was the catalyst for this new mission. You see, even though Sami was and still is a top performer both in sport and life, he made the mistake that so many of us make: burning the candle at both ends. “In 2008,” he says, “I had a view that the more hours you train, the faster you become and the more hours you work, the more effective you are.” That way o

Welcome to Episode Two of The Purple Patch Podcast, Performance in a Time-Starved Life. In this episode, Matt issues the challenge to shift our lens of training success away from simply “punching the clock” or achieving a certain number of training hours per week. By using a real-life case study from a Purple Patch athlete, Matt illustrates the corrosive effects of trying to do too much without the proper training focus and balance. It's a story that may sound all too familiar. There is no magic pill for success. You still need to train and your journey still requires massive commitments, but the lessons of this case study and the changes this athlete made will help you repave your path to your own brand of excellence. Throughout the episode, Matt weaves in his own unique takeaways, including the four magic words the comprise a successful training recipe.  Finally, he takes a closer look at one vital element of training in his weekly "Dixon-ary Word of the Week" Segment. This week, that word is: Fueling.

Welcome to Episode One of The Purple Patch Podcast. Will this just be another triathlon podcast? Absolutely not. At Purple Patch Fitness, our mission is to empower and educate every human being to reach their athletic potential.  It is through the lens of your athletic potential that you will reach your human potential and our interviews and conversations will be driven by this mission. The podcast will not only help you improve performance in your chosen sport, it will help you successfully integrate that sport into the chaos of the big, time-starved life you lead.   In Episode One, we take a deep dive into the history of Purple Patch and I share how a struggle with chronic fatigue was ultimately the best thing that ever happened to me and my career.  Want to know what the phrase, "purple patch" really means? You'll find out in this episode. I also introduce my Pillars of Performance that are not only the foundation of my coaching philosophy, but will also be the foundation of future episodes.  Finally, we t

The Purple Patch Podcast, hosted by Author and Triathlon Coach, Matt Dixon, will empower and educate you to integrate sport into life in order to reach your athletic potential because, it is through the lens of athletic potential, that you reach your human potential. In addition to topics such as planning your fitness into a time-starved life, the show will provide in-depth interviews, advice, and insight into optimizing your health, work, and life performance, along with the critical habits and approaches that facilitate the success of some of the world's top performers across many disciplines. Purple Patch Fitness Website Facebook Twitter Instagram LinkedIn   Copyright 2018 All Rights Reserved