Your best workout tips for Autumn/Winter

Patsy167

As we transition to Autumn/Winter, It can be easy to slack off on training as the attraction of getting outside in the mornings and evenings fades.

What are your best tips and tricks for keeping the momentum going? Are there any practices, training gear, or products that you find particularly helpful?

Black Sheep

I think consistency in training is the same year round, to a great extent, it depends on training being a habit. Some days you will be motivated to train, some days you will actively feel like not training, but ideally there is no decision making process about whether you'll be in the gym or not, you will train without much thought because it's just part of your routine.

If you can introduce something - say consistent training three mornings a week - and sustain it for several weeks then it's going to be easier to sustain indefinitely after that.

You can increase your chances of this by doing things like preparing in advance, to make it easier for you to get through those first several weeks. So write your training journal in advance. Pack the gym bag the night before. Go to bed earlier so you will be able to get out of bed earlier for your session.

James Clear's book Atomic Habits sets this process out in greater detail, some may be interested in it.

I also think programming is a big factor in all of this.

Some people will like the idea of programming weeks and months at a time. They like the certainty, knowing exactly what they are going to do in a workout that is weeks away. 5/3/1 lends itself to this pretty well, and its a way of programming a lot of people are familiar with. I once did a year of 5/3/1 where I just did variation after variation... 5/3/1 original, 5/3/1 Boring But Big, 5/3/1 first set last, 5/3/1 second set last, 5/3/1 with tonnes of bodybuilding accessories, it just goes on and on if you want. You could also do any number of programmes out there that taper up to a testing week, over something like 12 weeks, Heavy Light Medium is a great one.

Then there are people who are more likely to train if they don't have such a structured set-up and can 'hop on and hop off' and have it where missing workouts is less of a big deal. For people like this a very simple option is to programme and "A" and a "B" full body day, or an "A and "B" upper / lower split. You do A,B,A and if you miss a day you just do it next time. If it becomes B,A,B or some weeks are just A,B, it doesn't matter much. This isn't optimal long term but it is OK.

Patsy167

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117952991#Comment_117952991

Great advice. James Clear is well worth a follow on Twitter - https://twitter.com/JamesClear?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

caviardreams

I echo Black Sheep and the A / B type workout as being very flexible ways to cope with missing a few sessions - I normally do an upper / lower split, and then you can even do a full-body along side it if you can only make 3 days in the week or can only train mainly at weekends due to work commitments especially now with offices returning and traffic etc

So you can squeeze in one full body (e.g. the main movements from your A&B combined) on Weds and then upper on Sat & lower on Sun

Or if you get an extra day in, two upper and two lower

Flexibility can work really well in allowing you the space to fit *something* in at least, and avoid the "feck it, I have missed a session so my whole week is ruined as the program is down the drain" feeling

Black Sheep

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117955444#Comment_117955444

100%, an upper body day, a lower body day and an option third full body day would be a great idea.

Thinking about that also reminds me of Westside for Skinny Bastards, which is another time-proven late beginner / intermediate program. A version I liked, which was more aesthetics-orientated, had a max effort upper body day (Main lift was top set of 5, then assistance lift and accessories), a max effort lower body day (Main lift was a top set of 5, then assistance lift and accessories) and the third day was another upper body day, but this one was high volume, high rep and a lot of work to failure... This was where you'd walk out with a serious pump. It was a lot of fun.