We change our wardrobe with the seasons. Chances are, you’ve been in the process of pulling out your winter things from the garage and trading in your tank-tops and flip-flops from summer for sweaters and long-sleeves. But do you change your workout routine with the season?
Unless you happen to have a completely open schedule and very few responsibilities (I can picture you rolling your eyes!), changing your workouts around your changing life is a must. Not just around weather changes, but around your shifting routine and workload as well. When life goes into overdrive, it’s not enough to just hope for the best and try to fit your usual workout in as best you can. You’ll get frustrated unless you anticipate changes and plan around them.
Personally, I’m in the habit of changing my workout program about once a month (unless I’m training for something special). I do this because my life and schedule and environment tend to change from month to month. So for me, this involves looking at the month ahead and jotting out the following:
Fitness Objectives This Month: This may or not be a physical goal. For example, after having trained several hours a week for a race, my goal for the following month was to decrease my total workout time but increase the intensity. Another sample objective was from this past month, where one of my main objectives was to network within the local fitness center where I have recently begun to take clients, which included attending fitness classes even though they weren’t necessarily the toughest workout for me. To determine your main fitness objectives for the month, ask yourself this: What do I want to get out of my workout this month?
Resources This Month: This can range dramatically. It’s anything that you have uniquely going in your favor: a cardio class you love that recently changed to a better time, cooler temps for hiking than in the summer, a buddy at work who wants an exercise partner, etc.
Challenges This Month: Any good business person knows you have to anticipate challenges in order to work around them. The same is true of your workout. We don’t use these challenges as excuses; rather, we anticipate real barriers so that we can effectively plan around them. For instance, I know a unique challenge for me this month (ushering in my first winter in Alaska) is lack of sunlight for exercising outside. By the end of the month, I’ll only have daylight between the hours of 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., which means my usual 6 a.m. runs are out of the question. Knowing that, I can either plan to weight train early in the morning or plan my run around lunchtime (which means I need to keep that midday time frame open).
What are your unique objectives, resources, and challenges for the upcoming weeks? Download the Elevate Mobile Fitness Workout Planning Tool to help you prepare a workout plan that matches your upcoming calendar!
