The off-season is a time of anxiety for many coaches. Athletes disappear. Motivation wanes. That dreaded “off-ramp” appears, and suddenly you’re wondering who’ll still be with you come January.
But what if the off-season could be your secret weapon to coaching? Not just for retention, but for creating breakthrough performances?
Elite triathlon coach Matt Dixon, co-founder of Purple Patch Fitness and author of The Well-Built Triathlete, has cracked the code. His approach has yielded a stunning retention rate of over 98% during the off-season, with athletes reporting it as their most enjoyable phase of the year.
Here’s how he does it, and how you can, too.
The Four-Phase Coaching Model
Before we dive into off-season specifics, Dixon emphasizes the importance of context. His coaching philosophy centers on what he calls an “infinity loop” with four phases:
Aspire, Align, Action, and Assessment.
- Aspire is about understanding the bigger picture. Not just “What race do you want to do?” but “What does success look like for you a year from now? Why are you doing this?”
This phase can’t be rushed. It’s the foundation of everything that follows.
- Align is where you roadmap the journey together. This isn’t about throwing every possible improvement at an athlete. It’s about filtering. What will actually move the needle? Dixon calls this the “contracting phase” because you’re creating commitment and shared understanding.
- Action is the coaching itself: prescribing workouts, providing feedback, holding athletes accountable, and helping them course-correct when they inevitably stray (which isn’t failure, it’s just part of the process).
- Assessment is where most coaches either shine or stumble. This is your end-of-season review, but it’s so much more than looking at race results.
“A key trait of high performance is reflection, not judgement, but learning.”
The Season Review That Builds Trust
Here’s where many coaches go wrong: they arrive at the season-ending conversation with a checklist of what the athlete did right or wrong. This approach destroys trust and opens that exit ramp wide.
Instead, Dixon flips the script. Give athletes homework before the meeting. Ask them to reflect on:
- What did you execute really well?
- What did we do well as a partnership?
- Where did you fail to execute?
- Where did we fail to execute as a team?
Let the athlete lead the conversation. Your role is to listen, reflect on their insights, and create a positive environment focused on growth, not judgment.
“The reason we’re doing this is not to look back and judge, but to plan forward with purpose,” Dixon explains. These conversations aren’t retention tools in the traditional sense. They’re trust builders. And trust is the bedrock of any high-performing team.
Pro tip: Start the Conversation Early
Want to know the biggest retention mistake coaches make?
“They coach hard to the finish line and then suddenly ask the athlete to think about next year after the fact. But by then, the athlete’s already gone. You missed the off-ramp.”
Start talking about the off-season before the final race. Let athletes know you’ll do a quick debrief within 24 to 72 hours post-race, then a deeper conversation one to two weeks later. Make it feel like a natural part of the process.
That way, continuing with you as their coach doesn’t feel like a decision. It just feels like what comes next.
Reframing Off-Season: The Foundation, Not a Break
Most athletes view the off-season as optional. A time to “go rogue” and do whatever they want. Your job is to shift that perspective entirely.
“The off-season is the number one predictor of an athlete actually up-leveling the next year,” says Dixon.
When you look at athletes who have breakthrough seasons, Dixon notes they all share one thing in common: not more training, not tougher workouts, but a really good off-season.
Here’s the conversation to have: “Yes, I want you to rejuvenate. I want you to spend more time with family. I want you to have greater flexibility. And, with all that, off-season is still a phase of training. It’s not the same as the rest of your year. It takes less time, has lower cognitive load, and can be really fun. But the magic word in athlete development is consistency.”
What Actually Matters During the Off-Season
Dixon’s approach reduces training volume by about a third but maintains strategic consistency. Here’s what gets prioritized:
1. Strength Training. This becomes your bullseye. The two key workouts of the week are strength sessions. Everything else wraps around them. When you’re not chasing race demands, you can build the foundational tissue resilience that prevents injuries down the line.
2. Far-From-Demand Training. If you’re coaching an Ironman athlete who needs long, steady endurance, have them focus on short, high-intensity, and power work in the off-season. For runners, frequent easy running builds tendon, muscle, and ligament integrity without the cognitive load of structured intervals.
3. Foundational Habits. This is the golden opportunity. When athletes have more cognitive capacity, they can actually build the habits that are impossible to integrate during heavy training blocks:
- Hydration (most athletes walk around like dried sponges)
- Post-workout fueling (protein and carbs after every session, no exceptions)
- Sleep routines
- Daily nutrition practices
- Organizational systems
4. Projects. Let athletes personalize their off-season with a project. Maybe it’s doubling down on strength. Maybe it’s technical development in swimming. Maybe it’s nutrition and body composition. This gives them something to chase that isn’t necessarily performance-based but is performance-foundational.
Building the Program: Less Is More
When prescribing off-season training:
- Reduce total training hours by about one-third
- Make strength the priority (two key sessions per week)
- Add 1-2 other key workouts (short, high-intensity or technical work)
- Fill the rest with soul-filling, flexible activities
- Give athletes autonomy to move or skip supporting workouts
Leveraging TrainingPeaks for Off-Season Success
Dixon’s team uses TrainingPeaks strategically during off-season, treating it as more than just a workout delivery system. Here’s how:
Strength Programming: Purple Patch leverages the TrainingPeaks Strength Builder extensively. While they use custom videos for some exercises, Dixon notes this isn’t necessary for most coaches. “There’s such a great library in there,” he says. The key is making strength visible and trackable as a priority.
Flexible Workout Options: Use notes to provide both time-starved and time-rich versions of workouts. This gives athletes autonomy when life happens. If they have more time, great. If not, they know exactly what to prioritize.
Key Workout Identification: Clearly label your non-negotiable sessions in the notes. Tell athletes: “Here are your key workouts. Move them around if needed. It’s okay.” This clarity helps athletes understand what matters most and where they have flexibility.
Habit Tracking Integration: Rather than adding another app to athletes’ already crowded phones, use TrainingPeaks notes as reminder systems. “Have you hydrated today?” Simple prompts embedded in the platform help build those foundational habits without creating app fatigue.
The Anti-Metrics Approach: Here’s what Dixon doesn’t do during coach calls in the off-season: pull up charts showing fitness progression or TSS. “We remove all of that and we just let them be,” he explains. The platform becomes about nurturing the relationship and maintaining consistency, not chasing numbers.
The platform isn’t just for dumping workouts; it’s for creating an ecosystem that supports, reminds, and guides athletes through this critical phase.
The Counterintuitive Approach to Metrics
Here’s where Dixon might surprise you: he doesn’t focus much on metrics during off-season.
“I’m okay with an athlete losing some conditioning. I’m okay for them to get a little less fit in the classic sense if they’re putting building blocks in place.”
Set some ceilings (like keeping easy work truly easy), but don’t chase fitness progression. When you start looking for speed or power gains, you project stress onto athletes and destroy the rejuvenating nature of this phase.
Success in off-season isn’t about making athletes faster right now. It’s about creating the conditions for them to absorb training effectively when you dial it up in January.
The Inspiration Factor
Finally, remember that assessment conversations aren’t just about being transactional or building trust. They’re about igniting enthusiasm.
This is the time to help athletes dream bigger. To take on challenges they don’t think are possible. When you can get them to think bigger and they know you’ll be with them on that journey, you’ve cemented that trust.
The off-season isn’t something to survive— it’s your competitive advantage as a coach. Athletes who execute a proper off-season (meaning they’ve focused on strength, habit-building, and not going too hard) have a head start on their competition come race season. They’re mentally fresh, physically resilient, and equipped with habits that will carry them through the demanding months ahead.
Plus, they’re still your athletes.
Dixon’s sub-2% churn rate during off-season isn’t magic. It’s the result of reframing this phase as critical rather than optional, building trust through collaborative reflection, and creating an experience that’s genuinely enjoyable while still maintaining the consistency.
The exit ramp is always there. Your job is to make the road ahead so compelling that athletes don’t even consider taking it.
