Best-selling Author Shares His Insights on Fitness, Health, Training and More

Brad Cooper

Welcome to the latest episode of the Catalysts, Health and wellness coaching podcast. My name’s Brad Cooper. I’ll be your host and today is an interview with Matt Fitzgerald. If you don’t know mat, you’re going to link to a. want to get to know Matt when we’re done here. He’s a very well known author and in fact he’s written two of my all time favorite books. Matt became a runner at the age of 11. He ran the last mile of the 1983 Boston marathon with his father. How cool is that? For a starting point, he never intended to marry his passion for sports, fitness and writing, but that’s how it worked out. He moved to California in [inaudible] 95 for no particular reason and the next thing you knew he was writing for the new magazine triathlete. Since then, he’s been published and bicycling, Maxim men’s fitness, men’s health, men’s journal, outside shape stuff, and women’s health.

Brad Cooper

The son of a novelist, Matt, have a special passion for writing books and is best known. Titles include racing weight, brain training for runners and triathletes, magazines, essential week by week, training guide mets, also a certified sports nutritionist and a served as a consultant to numerous sports nutrition companies. He also continues to design readymade training programs for triathletes and runners that are sold through training peaks.com and final [inaudible] dot com as well as customized plans available through his own website, Matt and tends to keep racing until he can’t. He lives in northern California with his wife Nataki, who was more important to him. I’m glad to hear them both running and writing. Let’s jump in. All right matt. Well I appreciate you joining us today. A whole list of fun questions. First one out of the gate. What drew you to focus on endurance racing, coaching and writing, and I mentioned some of those elements in terms of history from your bio, but just in general, can you walk us through that a little bit?

Matt Fitzgerald

Yeah, so there was definitely no master plan. Um, you know, I, I’ve always been someone who knows what he enjoys doing and insists on doing what he enjoys. And I grew up as a runner, um, developed a passion for writing when I was also quite young. Um, there was a little bit of chance involved, you know, when I moved to California in 1995, uh, from the Philadelphia area, um, I wanted a writing job. The first one I got just happened to be with a startup, a triathlon magazine, and, and that actually wasn’t running at the time, but that open door, uh, sort of, um, it led to every other door that opened a subsequent. Um, and, you know, I started training and competing again. Um, and, you know, at first I was just a journalist, you know, I didn’t consider myself any kind of expert, but, you know, the more immersed I became in the endurance sports, I started to develop an expertise. So started coaching, became a certified sports nutritionist. Um, and then, uh, you know, just, I, I kind of swung and every patch and did some consulting speaking. Um, and, you know, now I’m, it’s more than shoot 20 years into the journey and I’m a pretty happy with how things have shaken out.

Brad Cooper

Wow. Wow. That’s awesome. I just noticed I’ve got my personal favorite books of yours in front of me and I just noticed that Samuele Marcora did you forward for how bad do you want it? That leads nicely into our second question because obviously a core is big on the evidence based practice elements. What role are our wellness coaches are battling that constantly there. They’re working with clients that are reading the headlines and then come to them with some crazy idea. What role do you see evidence based practices having in your coaching and your writing and why put the emphasis there and connecting with guys like Mark Cora when it’s easier just to follow the dramatic headlines.

Matt Fitzgerald

Yeah. You know, I’m someone who, you know, it starts with, uh, with my own athletics, you know, my own interest in competing and succeeding. I want to know what works, not, what’s popular or new or sexy, you know, I just, I don’t care what it is, as long as it’s legal and safe, you know, and as a coach, you know, I want to be right. I’m, you know, I’m not just going to latch onto something because I think I can make a buck or get my name out there. Um, so that’s really where it starts, you know, I’m, I’m, you know, desperately afraid of being wrong or you know, failing with an athlete. I coach. So, um, you know, I, I tend to go a take because I still really don’t consider myself an innovator. I’m more of like a conduit from the real brainiacs out there to know everyday folks. Um, so, you know, I, I keep an eye on science, but I’m also, I, I pay a lot of attention to what the most successful athletes in the real world do, you know, at the elite level because their livelihood is at stake. So when you talk about evidence based, um, it’s not just science, it’s also real world evidence as well.

Brad Cooper

Nice. Nice. Okay. So our audiences I mentioned, current or future health and wellness coaches, any advice you have for them as you’ve interacted with these different athletes? For the other stuff? So some of their clients will be athletes, some of them will be focused in the fitness arena, but other elements, you know, the sleep, the stress of life balance, have you have you come across some of those things as you’ve worked with these high level athletes and interview some of folks for your different books that might be helpful for the coaches.

Matt Fitzgerald

Yeah. You know, with endurance athletes, the thing I love about working with them is that they don’t need to be motivated. They just, you know, they, they, they bring that to the table. Um, so I take advantage of that because they’re not there. They’re motivated to train and you know, that they are motivated enough to want to spend money on the sport and put to invest time in it. Uh, you know, sacrifice and other parts of their lives. But you know, the motivation to do some of the ancillary stuff that supports their athletic ambitions. Like, you know, eat right. That comes from actually a different well of willpower, if you will. So sometimes in my work with them, you know, I, I liked them to have to have clarity on how everything fits together and everything matters and obviously, you know, if, if you’re, if you are an amateur athlete and your livelihood doesn’t depend on it, you have to sit on limit in terms of like how much you’re going to prioritize the sport that I really like.

Matt Fitzgerald

I like athletes to have clarity on, hey, you know, if you want to be the best runner, the best triathlete you can, you can be. It’s not all training. Um, and, and you know, I think that that same paradigm applies to non athletes who are chasing other sorts of goals as well. They, you know, they may think that, you know, only two or three things really, two or three things really matter and the way it doesn’t get sort of get them to buy into some stuff they’re not as motivated to tackle is to just, you know, get them to really understand the impact that it does have. I mean like, you know, take something like sleep, it’s like the first thing to go for so many people, but I mean, you’re doomed without it. You’re not gonna succeed in marathon training and you’re not really going to think very clearly at work or or whatever else, you know, whatever your goals may be.

Brad Cooper

So nice lead into the next question. Are there certain, you mentioned sleep, are there certain areas outside of the swim, bike, run core, maybe even nutrition as our primary areas for endurance athletes. Are there other ways that you’re starting to see a lot more kind of the balls getting dropped in those areas as they focus on the other

Matt Fitzgerald

five? Yeah, sleep is number one. And then some of ’em, you know, I guess I, I like injury prevention, just sort of like people. People need to keep in mind that health is the foundation of fitness. So, you know, you can’t, you know, some athletes, uh, you know, they’re, they’re inclined to just not eat enough. You know, especially a lot of the female athletes that I deal with, you know, and they think they sort of think, well, the skinnier I get the, you know, the faster I’m going to run, but, you know, I’ll point, I’ll point to, you know, athletes top female, uh, endurance athletes who have long successful careers and you know, the point I make is like these people are healthy. Like you might have, you might lose 10 pounds the wrong way and have one good race. You’re not going to still be a, you know, having a lot of success and, and developing as an athlete to three years from now unless you just have a solid, consistent foundation of health. Um, so there’s all kinds of balls people will drop with respect to a main building and maintaining that foundation. One that I’m always beating the drum on with, with athletes is some of the stuff like, you know, foam rolling and, and you know, mobility exercises and stuff that like, you know, I get it. They’re like, I gotta make time for that too. But you know what I mean, like sooner or later you, you either get on board with it the easy way or you get hurt and you got to get onboard the hard way.

Brad Cooper

I love that. So health is the foundation of fitness. That is. There’s your next book title man. That is so key. So, so did you come across that accidentally? Did you just keep seeing over and over and over either in your own training and racing or in the clients you’re working with, has that been something you’ve always seen as a, as a core piece or is that something that would, over time it just became so obvious. Health is the foundation of fitness.

Matt Fitzgerald

Yeah, sort of the way I came at it, I guess intellectually versus experientially is, you know, I was an English major in college so I don’t come from a biology, chemistry background, so I was sort of late to the party and had to bone up on my exercise physiology. But when I did, you know, crack open the textbooks and, and learn what I found was, you know, everything you need, like all of the uh, uh, physiological underpinnings, pinnings of endurance fitness are just, are like, they’re more of the same of what you need for health, you know, what I mean, like a lean, lean body composition or you know, high level of insulin sensitivity and a lean muscle tissue like you want some of that just to be healthy and you want more of it, you know, a strong immune system, a good and inflammatory control system, all these things, it’s total overlap. They, they, they help you just feel good and be functional and it’ll avoid disease and live a long life. But they also help you train effectively recover and succeed on race day as well. Um, so it’s just kind of like a, a basic, biological fact, you know, that health is in fact the foundation of fitness.

Brad Cooper

So good man, that is so good. Okay. So you’ve written a lot about nutrition and fueling for athletes. Any tips? You don’t have to go through all your books right now. Feel free to reference a book or two that you feel like would really be applicable for this audience, but any specific things, tips that you could provide the listeners and again, the listeners are either or future wellness coaches if they are working with athletes, any little tidbits that you think might be good to would take them beyond the typical things they read about?

Matt Fitzgerald

Yeah. When I’m always encouraging athletes to do in their nutrition or in their efforts to, you know, turn diet and nutrition to their greater advantage as athletes is to think in terms of tweet don’t overhaul. Um, in the, uh, you know, the Diet culture that, you know, the popular Diet Culture, uh, that we are currently surrounded by. Uh, there’s, there’s this tendency to like, you know, a diet has a name and you go on it and it’s like, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Like it doesn’t matter what you’ve been doing in the past. Like what you like, what you’re used to, what seems to work for you versus maybe not everyone. And then it’s just like throw all that out and start over. I encourage, I always, you know, when an athlete wants me to help him or her with, you know, with a, you know, an improved diet.

Matt Fitzgerald

I don’t just tell them here’s the Diet, I asked them a bunch of questions. I want to, I don’t want to know everything about what they’re doing now because I want to change as little people. Generally by and large they eat the way they do for a reason, you know, they, they like it. It’s convenient, whatever. Um, so I, I just, I, I take, I want them to know where they are now. Um, and, you know, look at, you know, just some basic, just doable things that, that they can adjust in order to get better results. And once you’re getting the results you want, don’t change anything more than, than you have to because it will make the whole thing more sustainable.

Brad Cooper

Man, you’re, you’re giving us some nice sound bites here. Tweak, don’t overhaul for our coaches, coaches, are you hearing this stuff? I mean tweak, don’t overhaul. That’s that is that, that’s wisdom man. Um, okay. So now onto my selfish part of this interview, you’ve written probably two of my favorite 10 books of all time and they’re sitting right in front of me. How bad you want it. And Iron War dude, I swear to you, every time I competed Kona iron war, even though it’s a worn out, hard back with the pages bent and tweets and all that, it still finds its way into my limited suitcase space. And then how bad do you want it? I mean, you talk about motivation from the get go to so good. So good. So I’m looking for more of these. Keep this up. This is great stuff. But as you’re working, these are the best athletes in the world. He generationally, that you’re talking about in both of these books are there. So some of the things that they do maybe don’t apply to, you know, Dave Scott racing the school bus to school at age, whatever, uh, on his bike probably isn’t something we’re going to encourage our kids to do right out of the gate. But are there certain lessons that you picked up from talking to these generationally? Amazing, incredible athletes that

Matt Fitzgerald

would apply to broader aspects of our own lives. Yeah, for sure. And you know, it’s tough. I, I wrestle with this because I naturally, I, I’m sort of a best practices oriented person, so you know, I like to look at what the grades are doing and say, well, you do that too, but you have to keep in mind it’s not all duplicable, you know, uh, you know, we can’t, you know, some, some, you know, some people are just born with something special and that’s fine, but I think there is stuff it’s helpful at least to understand what some of the consistent a magic is that all these world leaders tend to have just on the psychological side, you know, sort of ended up 50,000 foot level. The thing I see over and over and over with these athletes as a high level of self trust.

Matt Fitzgerald

Um, if you want a sound bite, the uh, the, the phrase I like to toss out is it’s just me against the world and I like my chances like that that is the attitude of these folks have. And it doesn’t mean they don’t have, you know, moments of doubt or moments where they lose confidence, but they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re not always scrambling, looking for, you know, for answers outside of themselves, you know, because ultimately, you know, it’s just a series of decisions and judgment calls that get you from point a to point B, whatever point B is for you. And it’s funny that, you know, a lot of the top athletes, they’re not necessarily the most physically gifted folks, like the most physically gifted ones are usually kicking butt as freshmen in high school. Right. But they’re not necessarily the ones who are world beaters 10, 12 years down the line.

Matt Fitzgerald

Often it’s the people who have just a little less physical talent than that, but a little more something going for them, you know, between the ears and that self trust piece. I see over and over and it’s, you know, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to train, but I’m sort of, it’s one of those things that I’m sort of working on now. It’s like, how, how much of that can we take out of the brain of a Dave Scott and impart into others, but there just to make it really concrete, like one of the tips I give people athletes when I’m trying to sort of develop a greater level of self trust in them is to get them into the habit of giving themselves the same advice they would give to someone else because often we have that voice of reason inside us, but we have difficulty applying it to ourselves. So it was just, you know, if you have, you know, some kind of setback, some kind of challenge that you encounter, uh, you know, when you’re looking for an answer, I imagine it’s a friend of yours who, who’s going through that challenge and, and chances are you’ll be able to come up with some good advice for that person and then just turn around and apply it to yourself. You can think through little tricks like that. You can start to bootstrap your way toward that, that, uh, you know, critical self trust.

Brad Cooper

You know, as you say that I think that’s another great tool for the coaches have used to encourage their clients. You, what advice would you give someone else? How do you apply that to you? But at the same moment I’m saying, wow, that’s really good idea. I struggled mightily in applying that basic concept in my own life and I know better I’m right, but. So have you seen kind of that next layer of okay, agree like we all think that’s good advice, that’s a route to go, but I am not going to do so any kind of second level advice of when you’re not used to doing this, I found this to be a little tweak or trick or whatever to help that be more consistent or to get started doing a little bit of that in anything like that you can throw out to us or maybe just to me.

Matt Fitzgerald

Yeah, well you know, I guess kind of a next step is, is just to think about, you know, outcomes, you know, what, what are the risks of making a decision, a decision be? What are the, the possible losses of going in, in one route versus the other and what’s, how do you weight the risk, you know, what’s, what’s a more likely outcome, the good or the bad when you, when you make a decision a versus decision be sometimes, you know, it all sounds very rational and the problem is emotion gets mixed up and all this, but sometimes it’s just you can sort of, you can sort of um, you know, help your rational side, you know, take the wheel in your mind by actually putting this stuff down on paper. Um, you know, it’s like, I know the smart thing is to do x, but I’m really tempted to do y and just, you know, sit down with a sheet of paper and a pen if people still use these instruments anymore and at and lay out pros and cons and just, you know, you’ll have it looking and staring you in the face.

Matt Fitzgerald

And it’s just a funny thing. You know, last last summer I spent in flagstaff training with a team of professional runners and I have never seen more athletes fail out of workouts than I did among the, these professional athletes, you know, go to the Olympics and it’s because of judgment, like it’s not because they’re not tough, they’re the toughest people. They’re also toughness in space, but they, they, they just stay rational, you know, like they’ll get 24 miles into a 26 mile depletion, Ron, you know, four weeks out from an, you know, a marathon and, you know, like their hip starts acting up and they just stop and it is so tempting to run those last two miles. I’m so close and you know, my, my, my confidence is going to take a hit. But I saw it again and again, not just with one runner, there were a on the team and they all did it and they just live to fight another day. And um, you know, so yeah. I’m not just saying this because it sounds good. Like it really is a key to success. It’s just to, you know, to learn to practice good judgement consistently. You don’t have to prove your toughness over and over and over again. You got to be tough. Yes, but also as, as smart as you are. Tough.

Brad Cooper

No Man. So good. So good. I that there’s another book for you. You can have that positive bailing out strategies or something like that. Yeah, just quit. Quit now tomorrow. So we’ve got some endurance endurance coaches that ended up getting their wellness coach certification is kind of a, a way to broaden their audience to, to expand that out. So I’d love to get without you giving all your secrets away, but you do a lot of endurance coaching, so any on the business side, any tips for those people that are listening, that are saying, hey, I want to grow my endurance coaching and I haven’t to get this one was coach certification, but man, I’d love to hear a tip from Matt any. Again, you don’t have to give us the big secrets, but anything that you think would be helpful in general about building their business, either as a, a broader coach, wellness coach or specifically to endurance coaching or some combination of the two?

Matt Fitzgerald

Yeah. You know, this is, um, you know, I get versions of this question fairly often. I find it a tough one to answer just because my path I’ve traveled is so unique and yet I do think there’s something that is, that can be learned from, from my example. And you know, in my case, as I mentioned, I started off as a, as a writer, um, and then sort of became a coach and an expert and an authority or what have you. And what I’ve found, you know, now that I’m, I’m kind of both of these things is that, you know, so much of succeeding this in this sort of business is just standing apart from the noise. You know what I mean? Like there’s a lot of competition out there and you know, simply being good at what you do is, is no guarantee of success.

Matt Fitzgerald

Like just people have to know you exist, you know, you have to have some kind of reputation. Like I had that problem solve before I even as good at what I was doing, you know, because, because, because my name was out there and so, but you know that that’s pretty powerful. Um, so people who are kind of coming at it from the other direction, I would just encourage you, like, don’t underestimate the importance of, of, you know, putting a time and effort and, you know, not just in, into practicing, uh, your, your coaching thing, but into building your name, getting it out there, you know, you know, I, I’m a writer by profession, but everyone learns how to write in school and it starting and it’s never been easier. You know, you can, you know, find ways to contribute to websites or have a blog or use social media, you know, to quote unquote create content and build your brand. And then, you know, uh, because you know, if you have to build it,

Brad Cooper

good stuff. So on that note then, so if your own coaching practice, and obviously writing is your heart, that’s where everything started and you love doing that and you always have, your dad was a novelist, but where do you see your coaching practice developing, expanding over the next decade or where would you like to see it expanding and developing over the next decade?

Matt Fitzgerald

Yeah, the, that question is timely. So, you know, I do a little bit of one on one coaching, but a lot of sort of coaching and mass. Um, uh, you know, I have a training plans that sort of sit online and people can choose them all a cart and I have a kind of a custom training plan service, which is, it’s a nice sweet spot between full one on one coaching and the sort of cookie cutter readymade stuff. I’m sorry, I have this business called 80 slash 20 endurance. I have a partner in it, uh, David warden triathlon coach. So we’ve got a little momentum behind this thing. You know, there are a couple of books that are getting that 80 slash 20 shtick out into public view and it’s sort of, it’s one of those things where I told you I swing at every pitch and was just another pitch I swung app, but it’s really gained some traction.

Matt Fitzgerald

Um, and I would like to, you know, I’m not really a business man, but I am in the process of sort of like getting the right help, the pieces in place to sort of turn this into a proper business. Um, you know, to actually include some offline elements like clinics, maybe a coaching certification program also to do more of what we’re already doing. So it’s kind of fun. You know, I’m, you know, I’m 47 years old now and um, you know, I, I like what I’m doing, but I also like to just take random left turns. And so this is one that I think could be kind of fun for the decade ahead is just a, we’re more of a business hat and see where we can take this thing. And what makes me feel good about it is that it really started with a demand. It’s not something I’m forcing down people’s throat, it just, it was just something I thought was valuable that I offered and it, it just, it kind of just. People liked it and wanted more of it.

Brad Cooper

Well congratulations. I’ll look forward to following you with that. That sounds awesome. Okay. So now moving from your business to you, we always like to ask folks about, okay, we’re talking wellness coaches, listening on your personal life, are there certain areas outside of your direct training you’re getting ready for a race, but in terms of your broader health and wellbeing,

Brad Cooper

certain areas or maybe just pick one that you’re focused on now and any insights about how you’re going about that and how it’s going. Good or bad.

Matt Fitzgerald

Yeah. You know, one thing that I have learned to do more of is to not try solve everything myself, fix everything myself. You know, I mentioned that flagstaff professional or fake professional runner experience I had, you know, it was kind of humbling in a way because I went into that feeling like I knew what I was doing, but then, you know, I was coached by a true elite level coach and had the resources, the physical therapy and, and you know, all the other stuff that, you know, professional athletes have and I’ve felt like I, I felt like at age 15 years and you know, I ran the fastest marathon. I ran the fastest marathon of my life. It was like my 40th marathon. I beat like a nine year old, nine year old personal best I thought I would know, I wouldn’t touch again.

Matt Fitzgerald

And I thought, wow, I really didn’t know everything. So now going forward I’ve kind of shifted back in the triathlon mode and unjust. I’m sort of making, I’m just being pr, exercising more humility and just getting help from people who are just, you know, specialists, you know, we’re also kind of siloed these days in our areas of expertise. And yeah, I know a thing or two, but I don’t know everything. So for example, on Friday of this week I’m going to spend an entire day at this kind of fancy, a athlete oriented physical therapy outlet in Palo Alto, California. Just getting all kinds, all manner of testing done, having my swim stroke video taped and getting a bike fitting because I’m very injury prone and I’m sort of kind of all dinged up right now and I’m just going to show up at this place and say I’m in your hands. You know, I just, I just want to be healthy. I’m not that great at doing it all by myself. And one thing I can trust myself to do is just do what they tell me, you know, because I’ve learned the value of why you gotta choose your experts. You got to choose your resources carefully. But once you know you have that faith and the people you’ve chosen to help you out, just let them do it. And so, you know, that’s, that’s what I’m trying to do.

Brad Cooper

Thanks for sharing that with us. Really appreciate that. So last question, just any kind of wide open, any tips, comments, anything as you think about someone in or considering going into the health and wellness coaching and Rena, any last little tidbits, tips, comments, ideas that you’d like to throw out there for them?

Matt Fitzgerald

Yeah. One thing I thought of sharing an answer to that question is, um, the value of walking the walk and, and being seen by your clients and potential clients doing that. That’s really powerful. Um, you know, I think I mentioned the importance of building a reputation and a brand and marketing yourself, but just, just modeling the lifestyle that you’re trying to get other people to follow. Um, you know, I, I am an athlete and I, I like to share my journey and I just, I noticed time and again that people really latch onto that when they see that I’m out there doing exactly what they’re trying to do and I’m also, you know, I tried to be very transparent and vulnerable as well when I just want to have a setback. I don’t hide it when I don’t know an answer. I admit it when I fail, I fail publicly, but um, uh, it can be a little scary to do that, but just people, people value, they want to see realness in, you know, um, so you know, you, there’s an aspirational element that they don’t know. Your clients don’t want to just know your knowledgeable, uh, they, they value sort of authenticity and it’s easier to get people to do something if, if you’re doing it yourself,

Brad Cooper

how do people fall? Like, I know how to follow you, but do you want to share with twitter, facebook, that kind of stuff. Best ways to keep up with latest books, latest things you’re working on, the journeys, the realness. I mean, there, there were just so many nuggets in this little 30 minute chat that I think mean you’re gonna have a lot of folks that are like, Hey, I like that guy. I want to follow what he’s doing. So best way for people to track. What would you suggest?

Matt Fitzgerald

Yeah. My personal website is mattfitzgerald.org, there’s also the 8020endurance.com business hub. I am on facebook and twitter is at Matt bit writer.

Brad Cooper

Well Buddy, I really appreciate it. Thanks for jumping on with us and we’ll call it a day.

Matt Fitzgerald

All right. Enjoyed it.

Brad Cooper

So many nuggets. I’ve been looking forward to this one for a long time and met. Didn’t disappointed. He as always, you can access additional details that catalystcoachinginstitute.com or reach out to us anytime you’ve got ideas for future podcasts. Loved to hear him. You got questions we can help you with. We’re here for you. You can send those emails to results@CatalystCoachingInstitute.Com. By the way, we have a really cool announcement. It’s just about ready to get out there. I thought I might be able to tell you about it today. It looks like next week you’re going to like it, so thanks for joining us. Thanks for spreading the word. Keep moving towards better than yesterday and we’ll talk with you soon. On the next episode of the Catalyst Health and wellness coaching podcast.