So I have been held back from training by my shoulder and wrist issue but I now feel that I can comfortably start my winter training from Tomorrow. For the past Month few months, even before I got really hurt I was stuck in a cycle of deciding to cycle 30 days without a day off to kick start my weight loss for the winter! This was a huge commitment in time and effort which obviously I wasn’t prepared to commit to! After being hurt I have decided that instead of trying to work out every day and lose as much weight as possible I need to work towards building long lasting habits instead so that I can keep the same habits after the first 30 days are done and dusted!
I am somewhat limited on the exercises that I can do at the moment as I am injured after all and I do not want to hurt myself any more than I am at the moment and I also have a hernia so I can’t start lifting heavy weights straight away but instead have to build up the weight slowly instead. I also physically can’t ride my BMX at the moment which means that I will have to focus on base training until I am able to get back on the BMX (Hopefully early next year!)
As of tomorrow I will have exactly 3 month, or 14 weeks or 97 days until January 1st so I am setting my goal to exercise Monday to Friday from tomorrow until 1st January 2023 and then I will adjust my training accordingly.
Last month I bought a smart training and I think that I will be able to use it from Tomorrow so I plan to ride the smart trainer on Zwift Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings before work (Monday I am in the office so I may leave it until Monday afternoon if needed). On Tuesday and Thursdays I plan to go to the gym and get a leg workout done. As I said before I can’t lift heavy weights or do free weights due to my bum shoulder and wrist and hernia so I will use just machines for now. I also can’t to core stuff as that will affect the hernia.
Like I said before, the actual act of exercising every week day is actually more important than the actual exercise as my primary goal for the next 3 months is build the habit of waking up working out without missing days for the entire time from tomorrow until 1st January.
At the weekend I will do active rest and walk for 10000 Steps or more in the morning to help ease my back pain and try and burn body fat while allowing my body to recover from the weekends training demands.
My plan is to wake up at 5 am every morning and work out for at least an hour before coming home and getting ready for work at 7:30 so getting up at 5 should give me plenty of time for this.
So my training plan for the next 3 Months is:
| Day | Exercise |
| Monday | Zwift 1 hour |
| Tuesday | Gym Legs 1 hour |
| Wednesday | Zwift 1 hour |
| Thursday | Gym Legs 1 hour |
| Friday | Zwift 1 hour |
| Saturday | Walking 10000 Steps |
| Sunday | Walking 10000 Steps |
***** Update*****
After thinking about the winter training I have decided to do Hitt training on Monday and Fridays and an aerobic ride on Wednesdays as a recovery ride. To start with I will do a 5 minute warm-up followed by a 10 second sprint followed by a 2 minute rest and repeat the sprint and rest until I have completed 12 sprints and then do a 5 minute cool down to finish the session. I think that this will work more BMX specific energy systems and build BMX specific fitness and leg speed more quickly than doing aerobic training alone.
| Activity | Time |
| Warmup | 10 minutes |
| Sprint | 10 seconds |
| recovery | 2 minutes |
| Sprint | 10 seconds |
| recovery | 2 minutes |
| Sprint | 10 seconds |
| recovery | 2 minutes |
| Sprint | 10 seconds |
| recovery | 2 minutes |
| Sprint | 10 seconds |
| recovery | 2 minutes |
| Sprint | 10 seconds |
| recovery | 2 minutes |
| Sprint | 10 seconds |
| recovery | 2 minutes |
| Sprint | 10 seconds |
| recovery | 2 minutes |
| Sprint | 10 seconds |
| recovery | 2 minutes |
| Sprint | 10 seconds |
| recovery | 2 minutes |
| Sprint | 10 seconds |
| recovery | 2 minutes |
| Sprint | 10 seconds |
| Cool down | 5 Minutes |
| Total Time | 34 Minutes |
I will do this for a month and see how I go and then I will see about increasing the sprint time to 15 or 20 seconds depending on how easy/hard I find the training.
Not only is Hitt more BMX specific even if I will be sat down for the time being due to my shoulder and wrist, it also burns a lot more fat fer session than just riding the bike for 30 minutes to an hour at a time! This will hopefully man that I can drop a fair bit of weight by the time I can ride the BMX again. By increasing the length of the sprints over time I can build up my on track fitness so if I can get to 40 seconds or more in a sprint then I can definitely go full out for a lap of the BMX track!
As the sprint times increase I will drop the rest interval so that the total training time will not increase over time to keep the training time as short as possible!
My thinking behind this change in training is to be fit enough to hit the ground running when I can start riding the bike again and also be as light as possible by that time too.