Winter training - what are you changing up?
If someone asked what I needed in winter I’d say a yummy casserole with family then a cosy fire, a hot choc and a movie please! Winter just has its feels! Life is practice and practice is life as we talked about last blog post! Because we’re mitochondrial beings - cooler mornings, UV lowering, slower starts, heavier foods, hotter foods, less salads, more soups - are our go to changes in our from warmer habits. But what does it mean for your training? Yes it should feel like it needs a change too.
According to a 2021 American College of Sports Medicine cold-weather exercise needs adjusting as our physiology adjusts to our changing environment. The drop in muscle temperature means there is a decline in aerobic capacity, exercise time, and power or sprint ability. Cold muscles must also use both their slow- and fast-twitch fibers to generate the same amount of energy they would when warm, eating up their oxygen supply and making them weaker. Weakened muscles often don't have the strength to resist injury - more so in winter too then. So how and what you move matters!
The seasons give you the opportunity to rethink your workouts, incorporate others, get outside, and explore types of movements you don’t normally practice. Luckily in Australia there’s not many days when we cannot train outdoors but the way we do certainly changes. Less rests or we’ll get too cold outside but indoor heating makes for different sweating patterns that day to day living in winter demands.
Winter’s also a reminder that not everything needs to happen at once. There’s a time for hard training and a time for rest and recovery. There’s a time for big performance pushes (competitions and events) and a time for tuning in to your body to better learn what it needs. Instead of fighting the season, you can reinforce this sense of inward vitality with a turn toward more internal physical practices as well. So planning these into your daily are a must too.
Winter considerations are simple: move to get warm, eat to get warm. Your energy costs to live in winter are techinically more just to keep you warm and the preventatives are even more necessary.
Winter weight - is at the top of everyone’s mind (mostly just before Spring) but we should go with that. At the risk of lifting, sweating and getting cold before you go again, keep your rests shorter, maybe that means lowering the reps or the speed, a slow time under tension works magic on your inner warming magic!
Low-intensity cardiovascular activity is another good choice in winter. It’s possible to maintain (and even boost) your cardiovascular and joint health, as well as overall mobility, with leisurely activities that don’t leave you depleted. Remember keeping you warm already costs you more just to wake up in the morning so make sure your reserve is generous for those ‘keep me working correctly’ (let alone optimally) needs!
Moving more often through the day also makes more sense in winter. As we’re more inclined to do less and so stagnate our lymphatic system- which needs our movement to pump out the waste! And we all know what a stagnant pool means - smelly, weird creepy crawlies, discoloured, just eww?! Let’s move that stuff up and out. Movements like calf raises three ways are essentially your body’s lower body pumps this winter so let’s get lifting!
When it comes to a consistent metabolic health forge, there’s no better feeling: think cosy but able to brave the cold with boundless energy and flu-free abandon! Where’re you getting your energy from this winter?
