Autumn Season Fitness Program
The final outdoor pool day was yesterday here at my townhouse complex and I had a successful swim workout season with three sessions each week all summer as I had originally planned. Too bad our outdoor pool season is so short as I would be willing to extend it through September but each year it’s the same schedule here.
I found my swim workouts have improved this summer as it was the full swim season I utilized flip turns which I learned how to do only last summer. This season, my flip turns were executed much better with more precision resulting in better transitions from length to length. I was even able to do some swim sessions where I used flip turns on every length.
Another improvement I had in the pool was that I rarely lost count of my lengths this summer as I relied on counting in different foreign languages for each set of ten lengths which kept me on track. In general, I found most of my swim workouts consisting of 70 total lengths to be pretty manageable as I felt pretty strong even towards the end of the workouts. This would suggest that my cardiovascular fitness was improving with these swim workouts.
Now that my outdoor pool season is done, it’s time to switch over to my autumn season fitness program. Since swimming is so effective for me, I’ll continue to swim throughout the fall season but only once per week and it will be back at the indoor community centre pools which are much larger than my outdoor pool. So the number of lengths will have to be adjusted to fit the 30 minutes of swim time I usually like to do.
With only one swim workout per week, I get to bump up my martial arts workouts for the autumn season. I’ll have two different martial arts workouts with one covering empty hand forms (routines, kata), self defense and kickboxing techniques while the other workout will be with my martial arts weaponry.
My strength training with weights along with intensive stretch (super stretch) will still be twice per week as they were with my summer program except I’ll do extra sets for my legs since the fall is also pre-ski season training for me.
For the next few months, it’s also my social Meetup group’s fall hiking season when we do longer 1.5 to 2 hour hikes at conservation areas with our small dogs group too. These hikes are also part of my fitness program.
So here’s how my autumn fitness program will look like;
Mondays – martial arts forms, stretch
Tuesdays – martial arts weapons, stretch
Wednesdays – swim
Thursdays – strength training, super stretch
Fridays – martial arts forms or weapons, stretch
Saturdays – hiking
Sundays – strength training, super stretch
