Maintaining Consistency Through the Holidays
The holiday season is tough when trying to be consistent during the holidays. It seems like every time we turn around there is another function or last-minute craziness at work or home. However, this doesn’t mean we aren’t able to come up with a consistent training routine that allows us to reach our goals while still being flexible enough to deal with the holidays.
1. Revisit your training goals / performance goals. Take a few minutes this week to review your goals, mini-goals, and barriers. We want to see how much wiggle room there is to move things around. For instance, if you’re working out just for fun, you may have more wiggle room than someone preparing for a competition in two weeks.
2. Check your calendar. What’s going on in the next month that absolutely cannot be rescheduled? What are the days where you know you most likely won’t be able to train? Block those dates out as no-go dates. Pencil in your training days around these days and annotate the most likely amount of time you’ll be able to be at the gym.
3. Prioritize training your weaknesses. We want to make the best use out of the time we have. If you know you only have 3 days with 30 minutes each day to train, use those 30 minutes to really hit those weaknesses. For instance, if your squat is being hampered by your hamstrings, use one day to hit your hamstrings hard.
4. Be flexible and know it’s okay to miss days. Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t get into the gym every day that you planned. Instead, take the time to reschedule it for that week if you can. If not, consider combining what you missed into the next session. Also, maybe there are things you can do at home, such as band workouts or even using household items or bodyweight exercises. YouTube is great for finding short, home-based training sessions.
At the end of the day, the holiday season is stressful enough without adding more onto it. Remember, if you’re super stressed, your body isn’t going to recover efficiently. Don’t ignore training altogether, but also keep in mind that missing one or two sessions (unless extreme situations where you’re in competition prep) probably won’t set you back much, if at all. Please let us know how we can help you; we have some great programs for the holiday season if you need one.
Upcoming Events
April 2, 2022 - Florida Man Mayhem I: Ladies and Gents, mark your calendars for a day of watching strong people lift heavy shit up! We promise it will be a great time and it’s just down the road at Laishley Park. As the time comes closer, we will also be looking for volunteers to help us out. Don’t worry, you’ll be rewarded :D
Past Events
New & Noteworthy
Coaches' Corner: Episode 8 - Powerlifting Comp Prep 1
For last week's coaches' corner, we began a short series of prepping for a powerlifting competition. Make sure you keep up because you don't want to miss tips that will make comp prep so much easier.
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