This article is being penned (typed) as I look out the window at darkness and snow. It is indeed winter. I hope this finds you enjoying the holiday season.
Here’s a question I’m often asked. “Should we train the same way all year round?” Or more specifically, “Why can’t we just train the same way in winter as we do in summer?” Well, honestly, anyone can do whatever they want at any time. But if they are asking me for advice on optimal training, I’m going to tell them that their training should not look the same in winter as it does in summer.
It’s crazy how straight talk ticks people off, because those with less than open minds turn ice cold instantaneously as soon as they don’t hear what they want to hear. Regardless, let’s dive into this subject and let the doubters doubt and haters hate. We’ve already lost them anyway.
We shall begin with a few essential differentiations between winter and summer. Generally speaking, it’s warm in summer and cold in winter. Daylight hours are significantly longer in summer than they are in winter. While these points are obvious, they set the stage for a number of evolutionary and societal behaviors by which humans, as part of the natural world, are impacted.
Evolutionary biology indicates that temperature and especially light have a profound effect on circadian rhythms. These environmental stimuli alter the hormonal regulation that dictates our physiologic function. Thus, time of year correlates strongly with traditional human patterns, particularly in regard to drivers of daily movement, sleep, and nutrition.
Pursuant to the title of this article, we are going to focus primarily on the movement component and just mention the other elements in cursory fashion. We have a need, and a tendency, to sleep more in winter and less in summer. Likewise, until very recently, food availability historically guided an annual fluctuation in the consumption of macronutrients and calories. These aspects are hard-wired into our genes and modern humans have not yet successfully overridden them, despite societal efforts to homogenize day to day practices throughout the year.
There are a number of topics around which training patterns for Lifetime Athletes should vary between summer and winter. We’ll highlight a few of those.
Workout duration is one of the most important considerations when designing your winter training. Put simply, your sessions should be shorter in length during the winter than they are in the summer. That circadian-hormonal drive which we mentioned earlier puts your body into relative energy conservation mode. The inner organism isn’t as willing to push and deplete as it is in summer. Storing and preserving output reserves is the name of the game. Remember that this is hard-wired. Your body is less inclined to do a super-long workout in winter. Sure, you can force anything, but engaging in excessively long workouts in winter can put you out of sync with the natural rhythm. You can end up flat in spring, just when you should be ramping up. This difference in workout duration doesn’t necessarily have to be drastic, as in 10 minutes compared to 2 hours (winter to summer). It might only be a 10-20% reduction in session length. Always remember that your mileage may vary. In our Training Tribe community within The Lifetime Athlete App, we call our winter workouts microworkouts.
Overall training volume is another critical factor. This relates to workout duration but concentrates on the total amount of training performed in any given time period or cycle. If we are comparing apples to apples, the time spent training or the total amount of work done over a month in winter should be less than in summer. Volume can be a powerful stimulus, or changemaker, but it can also be the primary contributor to chronic fatigue. As natural beasts, our tolerance to accumulated workload is lower in winter than it is in summer. This is one of the biggest reasons for the high rate of failure of New Year’s kickoff, or resolution-based, programs. They pile on volume, and increase it too rapidly, at a time when human physiology is less receptive to it. On the other hand, I’ve seen thousands of folks who have loaded up in the summer and gotten outstanding results. Know when to strike.
The amount of high intensity exercise over a training cycle should be less in winter than in summer. You’ll notice that I did not say you should avoid high intensity training during the winter. Nope. As Lifetime Athletes, we (strategically) employ high intensity training all year round. We just do less of it during those shorter workouts when it’s cold and dark outside. Explosive movements and high outputs are essential for optimal performance and conditioning, but during winter they should be microdosed (to use a pharmaceutical analogy). Intensity exposure during the winter (at least mid-winter) should be more of a minimum effective dosage than a maximum absorbable dosage.
The need for recovery from a phasic context is essential and it can be best explained by using an animalistic model. Much of the animal kingdom goes into downtime mode during winter. This is particularly true of species like bears that hibernate. While humans have not evolved to metabolically downshift to that degree, we are cellularly organized to benefit from a restorative time frame during which output is lessened and recuperative behaviors are emphasized. Winter is the natural time to relax a bit and ease up a little on the structure. Again, I’m not saying you should just be completely flippant or even lazy about training. I’m just recommending that you give yourself permission to go a little less hard or long. Adopting this mindset is tough for some and there are a number of personality-based factors involved. But any human who can tune into this natural ebb and flow of annual energy expenditure has the potential to improve both health and athletic performance. While this may seem counterintuitive to modern thinking, it’s totally instinctive when you consider, and respect, evolution.
The types of training we do in winter don’t really have to change from our summer choices. But the focus of that training should shift slightly. As opposed to really going after a specific capacity, such as strength or endurance, we benefit from an approach that is “well-rounded.” Restoring movement quality is a very appropriate winter training goal. This may take a little explaining. You can take almost any exercise and perform it with a specific goal in mind. You can build resistance toward maximum effort to develop strength. Take it to failure (or close) in the pursuit of hypertrophy. Increase the rate of force development for power and speed. Expand the end range for flexibility. Crank up the sets and shrink the rest periods for conditioning. And more. All of those techniques are good and they certainly have a place in our Annual Training Plan. But in winter, it’s a fantastic idea to perform movement for movement’s sake. In other words, use exercise to practice getting better at movement itself. Words like artistic, graceful, poetic, supple, fluid, and skilled should describe the outcome of such endeavors. Just as winter is a restorative season for repair and recovery, it’s the ideal time to restore movement competency, which most singular types of training will diminish if they are done exclusively for too long.
As Lifetime Athletes, we often approach training as a complement to sports participation. And we absolutely should. Training for LIFE means we do the training to be more capable at – and to get higher performance and enjoyment from – everything we do. Sports, work, chores…you name it. With less fatigue or injury risk. So training is the regular habit that supports everything else. Certainly, when set up right, we can enjoy the heck out of our training and many days that’s all we need. But training is the preparation which empowers us to our highest potential. In most cases, winter training should take on a slightly more casual attitude. We want consistency, dedication, and discipline…we just need a little less of it in the winter. Maintenance is the focus.
The last sentence holds true for most of us. But if skiing, hockey, basketball, or other winter sports are your passion, training should be just enough to fill in the gaps and support (not compete with) your play and competition.
These suggestions are components of The Seasonality of Peak Performance. That’s a comprehensive principle we utilize at TLA, particularly in the Annual Training Plan that guides our Training Tribe fitness for life programming within The Lifetime Athlete App. It’s a high-level concept, but in reality, we don’t have to be all that sciency with our winter training. Just relax and enjoy the season.