Now that I have my very own fitness centre just down the street, I figured I should probably be strategic in how I approach weight training. I mean I can certainly go in there a few times a week and lift weights but I thought it might make a bit more sense to make sure that I was doing exercises that would target specific areas in order to improve how I perform in my other activities.
You know, like do trunk rotation exercises to help my golf swing and that sort of thing.
I decided to see what I could find online by searching for weight training for a specific sport and then seeing if I could string together some sort of targeted weight training routine.
I got about that far in my thinking before I laughed out loud.
Weight training for golfers would certainly give me a few ideas for how to strengthen the muscles I need in order to be a strong and stable golfer but that would not necessarily help my running.
Or my curling.
Or my cycling.
Or my swimming (once I get my sorry a$$ back in the pool).
So I laughed at the ridiculousness of my idea.
If I looked up specific weight training exercises for each of the activities that I do and strung those together I would have to quit my job so that I could spend all of my time lifting weights.
I stared at my monitor for a few moments and then decided that the best approach is probably a varied one. Every part of my body can benefit from getting stronger and, as long as I do a variety of exercises so that I don't strengthen one part at the expense of the other, I'll probably come out ahead.
So rather than driving myself mad trying to create a routine to help with everything, I decided to go with option #2.
Book a session with one of the instructors and let them give me some guidance as to how to proceed. Which is exactly what is happening this afternoon when Doug and I meet with the Cybex instructor so that he can make sure we know how to use the machines and then answer any training questions we have.
I'll let you know next week how it all went and pass on any great tips I may learn.
Have fun with the instructor. Hopefully he or she will give you some good ideas.
ReplyDeleteI've seen so many different suggestions for the kinds of strength and conditioning exercises runners and triathletes should do. (Never considered golfing, though.) So many, in fact, that I've felt overwhelmed on occasion.
At the risk of adding to the noise, here's what I'm currently doing:
* Walk 10 minutes on the treadmill with some very light upper-body stretching as I walk. Basically I just stretch my arms, lengthen out my core, and add in a little core rotation. I workout first thing in the morning, and this gets me loosened a little and wakes me up a bit.
* Squats with weights, lat pull-downs, hamstring curls, chest dips, suitcase deadlifts with kettlebells, and bent-over rows. There's this other pike/crunch abdominal exercise I do, but I don't know its name. The exact volume (weight and reps) depends on where I am in the season.
* Some stretching and planks (front and side).
And that's it. It usually takes me about 45 minutes.
Have fun!