Winter Health and Fitness

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Don’t let the temperature sabotage your Winter health and fitness goals.

If you train outdoors and struggle to keep up your Winter health and fitness routine, try some of these tips:-)  

Lets face it, we’re all different. Some people can handle the colder temperatures much better than others. I am a prime example of that! During Winter I will often be dressed in 3 layers of clothing and still be shivering with freezing hands and feet while my boyfriend will be wearing shorts and a light jacket and be toasty warm!! When I cycle in the early morning during Winter my hands will get so cold that I could cry and I think I have tried every cycling glove on the market!! Needless to say I change my winter health and fitness routine to include afternoon cycling instead of early mornings:-)

It is important to keep your Winter health and fitness routine regular.

The worst will be over within 10-12 weeks depending on which part of Australia you live in.

rug up!!

While everyone’s tolerance to the cold is different, you can implement a few small changes to ensure that you don’t stop all together;

Winter health and fitness routines can be different, challenging, indoors or outdoors.

• Combining a bunch of new exercise and perhaps some different indoor training routines will keep your training fresh. By mixing up your winter health and fitness sessions you’ll ensure your routine doesn’t become boring while still being able to challenge yourself.

• When seasons change, so does your wardrobe! This goes for your training clothes too. Investing in some light gloves, a beanie, a wind proof jacket etc will go a long way to ensuring you keep up your winter health and fitness fun!! Try to dress in layers so that once you warm up you can strip some clothes off and you will still have some warm dry clothes to put on afterwards while you are doing your stretch/cool down.  It’s never pleasant trying to stretch while you are shivering! There are plenty of options available for warm workout gear.

I love my beanie:-)

• Stick to a routine. It only takes 21 days to form a habit so plan out your weekly training in advance and stick to it! Once you’ve formed a routine it will be harder to break regardless of the excuses!

• Find some training buddies who will keep you accountable. If you know people are waiting for yo to arrive, chances are you will get out of bed and join them. Join a team, a running group, meet your friends for an after work workout  and share the fun!! You can bitch about the cold weather together:-)

What’s your favourite winter health and fitness session?

 Kim