All charge in the spring/summer leaving you in pieces by fall?
“Yeah I'll be back in the gym after summer"
"I’m just going to manage and I’ll get it sorted after summer.."
Are you stuck in the same cycle of charging hard all summer (or winter) and hoping the shoulder seasons will allow you enough time for the body to recover..
Sound Familiar...
So how do you break that cycle without missing out on all the summer activities?
Well.. It's not always easy with the fear of FOMO setting in as you see friends and social media posts of sunny days on trails, summits and more. It is striking the balance maintaining consistency in strength training routines and managing volume/loads week to week.
1. Consistency is important!
It's a message you'll hear me say over and over but it truly is an important key to success long term. We get to the summer months and simply drop any strength routines that had been established. If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say I don't need to train leg strength I bike or hike" I'd have a enough money to buy a 1 bedroom condo in the valley... Well maybe a condo back in the 80’s.
Instead of dropping your strength training completely, look to drop the volume but keep the intensity. This can include dropping the days of training down to twice weekly or 3 out of 10 days as well as reducing the volume in the highly demanding movements (i.e. anything that requires moving load across multiple joints - squats, deadlifts, lunges, bench press etc.). Reducing the number of reps per a set allows for less global fatigue within each set and also allows you to work at a higher intensity within each set.
Strength can be maintained at its current levels with as little as 5 sets per a muscle group each week if the stimulus (i.e. load) is large enough. Generally the load your looking to achieve is a weight that allows for 1 - 2 reps in reserve.
2. Managing Volume/Load
We can’t always depend on mother nature to produce forced rest day’s we need to manage them through our week/month’s. Smart phones and fancy watches have made tracking activity a lot easier over the last few years. Just as it would be in your programming there is a need to taper off workload when we start to identify plateaus in performance.
This can be proactively built into your summer plans by dedicating certain days in the week to lower intensity and low volume activity or with low intensity low volume week within a month. The rest days don’t have to be full rest but they do need to demand a low level of intensity.
If you have the ability to track your metrics day in day out then keep an eye for any small increases in resting heart rate over the week/month it could be a sign your body hasn’t fully recovered and needs some more rest.
3. Give your body some TLC
Rather then waiting for your body to get to the stage of needing a piecing together, instead be proactive and intuitive in booking soft tissue treatment to help manage your tissues. We often feel the need to wait until something is wrong to see a physio, acupuncturists, massage therapist etc. But I have seen the value in periodic treatments throughout the year especially during those times that are heavy in workload. This can help to reduce the risk of musculoskeletal issues developing into something larger and that may result in you being parked on the side line. It also helps in identifying anything prior to it becoming an issue.
Truth be told there are probably many strategies that can be added to this list but here we have a start. The goal ultimately is to ensure that you and your body have a summer full of fun and with more time spent enjoying your pursuits for many years to come.
Be good to yourself and lets get it!!
