It was 40 degrees today with the humidity, and Wednesday and Thursday are supposed to be even hotter with a humidex of 46 on Thursday, that’s 115 degrees for those still stuck in the 70’s. That means today was a hot one in the gym and at these temperatures you really have to be careful of overtraining, overheating and cramping. That is the greatest challenge of summer training in facilities without air conditioning, and before I go on let me state I am not in favour of air conditioned gyms, either for gymnastics or for your recreational weight lifter. Summer does present unique problems though and the work rate is significantly impacted due to the heat. That said, we are still going 3 hours a night and did manage to do a Death By Chelsea workout tonight as follows:
1 chin up
1 push up
1 squat
Add 1 rep each minute to 20 (or max). We managed to get to 10 before it was over 60 seconds to completion so we started again at 1 and got to 5. It meant a 15 minute workout of the three things they need most, arm strength, back strength and leg strength. We still need to develop some plyo workouts but at these temperatures that is asking for trouble.
It’s a smoking hot monday night and at least we all did something productive!