How to Start Training for Summer Now: My Spring Workout Plan

Spring has sprung and that means it is time for a new training phase. All winter I have been working on building my strength, increasing my 1 rep max on my key lifts (deadlift, squat, row & lat pull down, and bench press), and solidifying a workout routine. This training style really suits how I feel in the winter and how I eat in the winter, which is simply that I eat more and I like to train slowly.

Now that Spring is here and Summer is just around the corner, it’s time to inject a little more energy into my workouts and prepare me for longer days outside, weekends wandering and dancing with friends, and hopefully a holiday filled with lots of swimming at the lake.

My body is strong and my habits are even stronger, so now it is time to use the consistency of my workout routine to train for a season that requires more endurance. In this article, I’ll break down how I am approaching my spring training plan, why I make certain exercise choices and how I’ll be supporting my Spring training goals with lifestyle choices.

Endurance Training: What is it and Why is it My Training Goal for Spring?

When you hear the word in endurance, you likely think of endurance athletes or someone saying you need endurance to make it through a long, time-consuming, and arduous task.

Endurance quite literally means that your body will train to endure long bouts of repetitive movements or exercises. For endurance athletes, this means running marathons, swimming the 400m, or cycling the Tour de France. Some of these sports requires a person to do the same motion for hours on end.

For the every-day gym girlie who doesn’t have hours to train at the gym, this means adding more repetitions to each of your sets. This high-rep training style will train your body to endure those longer days and give you the energy to enjoy those longer days without feeling gassed or burnt out before the day is over.

With higher reps means lowering your weights for the season. You don’t see overly muscular, dare I say it “bulky” athletes running marathons. Their bodies are lean and efficient because it is really hard on the body to run for 2 hours carrying any extra weight.

So if you are planning to try endurance training, just know that you’ll have to scale back your weights. The goal is to get more good quality reps in than it is to try and push a new PR. You’ll also be taking minimal breaks with this style of training. I am talking like 10s – 45s maximum.

Again, going back to our endurance athletes, they take no breaks. They are repeating the running motion for 2hrs without stopping. But we aren’t necessarily training to run marathons, so we can take breaks so that we don’t injure ourselves during our workout.

With all of this in mind, why would I chose this style of training for Spring? As I mentioned in my intro, my summers are way more active. I am out and about, I am dancing at festivals for 10hrs a day, for 2-3 days straight, I am wandering the city and going on hot-girl walks. I ask my body to do way more in the summer than I do in the winter.

By using the Spring time to train and prepare my body to have the energy and endurance to last all day long, I am being proactive with my training. I’ll show up to those summer events already ready to dance all day, instead of needing the first month to adjust to the new demands of summer.

As a final note on the “why” for my Spring training plan, endurance athletes are lean athletes. I have spent the last 6 months or so getting stronger, and building up good muscle tone in my body, but there’s some extra weight on there as well that has acted as an insulator during the cold months of the year, and an energy source to fuel those intense workouts.

It is time to cut the “fluff” and send a signal to my body that we won’t need all that insulation anymore, and we need less stored energy since my workouts won’t be as intense.

Now that you know what endurance training entails and why I’ve chosen this style of training for Spring, let’s get into the actual how of the training plan.

My Spring Training Plan: How and When I Will Workout

To help frame the next 3 months of workouts, I’d like to start with 3 lifestyle habits and goals that will support this phase of training:

1. Increase my step target from 10K to 20K per day. I already average around 12K steps, so the additional 8K will come from more time on the treadmill and re-introducing my lunch-time walk into my routine.
2. Include a dark leafy green at every meal. I am currently really slacking on my leafy greens intake. I loathe the idea of eating a spinach salad when it’s -20C outside. So to add more fiber and essential nutrients into my diet, I’ll be making sure every meal includes a dark leafy green. This can mean an omelette with spinach, a wrap with lettuce, and then maybe a warm kale or spinach salad with dinner.
3. Attend a yoga or pilates class at least once per week. My body is stiff and tight after 6 months of bracing for the cold and training my muscles hard. So I’d like to add a dedicated hour to my routine where I let someone else tell me what to do, and my body is challenged in a different way.

Now let’s look at how these fit into my week.

Weekly Breakdown

When I am preparing for a new phase of training I look at it on a macro scale, in this case the 3 months of Spring; April, May and June, and then break it down into smaller phases. Since endurance training is about simply moving more and repeating those movements, I am going to break things down on a weekly scale, instead of going from a 3-month view, to a monthly view, and then down to weekly.

Monday: Legs and Stairmaster

I still want to make sure I keep doing my core lifts on a regular basis, but in the interest of repetition, I am going to split my training days into legs and upper body. This means that squats and deadlifts will be trained on the same day, but they’ll also get 2 days per week.

So to start off the week I’ll train squats and deadlifts, supported by exercises that will correct weaknesses like single-leg squats, and glute bridge. Before the soreness from those exercises kick in, I’ll take on the stairmaster, really making sure my legs muscles know that we are in a phase of repetition.

Tuesday: Upper Body and Incline Treadmill

As mentioned, this phase will split my workouts into upper and lower body, so for Tuesday, I’ll be focusing on my back and chest muscles. Specifically, I’d like to improve my push-ups and pull ups. I want to make sure my upper body can support my own weight and to do so at high reps.

So my Tuesday workout will focus on push-ups, while working on my back muscles on the rowing and lat-pull down machine, and then I’ll switch strategies later in the week so my pull-ups are the focus, and I use machines or free weights to train my chest.

My legs will likely be tired from the day before, so I’ll take a low and slow approach to my cardio. Walking on an incline for a minimum of 20 minutes will do the trick.

Wednesday: Active Rest Day

Similarly to my winter training schedule, Wednesdays will be my rest days. In the winter, I typically do the bare minimum. I need my nervous system and my muscles to rest and recover so I can get back to lifting heavy weights.

For the Spring, I want to give my body a chance to recover, but I’ll be sending the signal to the body that I still need it to be active, even on rest days. Endurance athletes work this into their events by moderating their pace so they start strong, even out into a pace they can maintain for a long time, and then still have enough to finish at a faster pace.

Active rest looks like going for a morning walk, running my errands, and going for an evening walk or bike ride. I don’t want to be intense, I just want to keep the body moving.

Thursday: Leg Day 2 and Running

For the second leg day of the week, I’ll likely have the same workout structure, training squats and deadlifts and doing a few accessory movements to strengthen any weak points.

Then I’ll run on the treadmill. I am not a runner, and my knees and hips are sensitive to running, so running on the treadmill will mean starting slow and working my way up to around 10 minutes of consistent running with 1-2 minutes of walking after each 10-minute set.

I want to be mindful of my physiology to make sure I can keep training every week without injury, but I also want to continue to work in exercises that support the overall goal of endurance.

Friday: Upper Body Day, Pull-Up Focus, with core and cardio

To finish the core training days, I’ll be working my upper boy with a focus on training pull-ups, trying to increase the number of reps I can do unassisted. A pull-up requires a lot of core strength as well, so my accessory exercises will focus on building a strong core with exercises like planks, deadbugs, and shoulder taps.

For cardio, I’ll leave it to vibes on Friday. Maybe I want to row or do stair master again. Friday is a fun day, so I want to make sure my cardio selection isn’t strict.

Saturday: Bonus Workout Day

As I mentioned, I would like to include at least one day of yoga or pilates in my Spring workout routine. I know that my gym offers both on Saturdays so I am thinking this is when I’ll work that into my schedule.

If I can’t make a class, there are tons of free yoga and pilates workouts on Youtube or my FitBit app, so I’ll make it work if getting to the gym doesn’t work with my weekend schedule.

Sunday: Rest, Reset and Refuel Day

If you’ve read my other articles, you know that I am a big advocate for rest. It’s so important and without appropriate rest, your body doesn’t really have the time to recover.

On Sundays, I’ll aim to do just that. This will be active rest, but dialed back from what I’ll be doing on Wednesdays. It will also be an important time to refuel. Sunday will be the day to indulge a little more and give my body a boost of energy so we can get back to our workout days with the energy we need.

When Does this Phase Start?

The planning is complete; I am clear on my goals and the steps I’ll have to take to achieve my goals so now it is time to actually start! But when is the official kick-off date for this training phase?

Short answer: I’ve already started!

The timing of my trip to Portugal is perfect for kicking off this new phase of training. I don’t have access to my gym and heavy weights while I am here, and Lisbon is a big city for walking. And not just any walking – walking up and down lots of hills. They are unavoidable!

Although very tiring, it is the perfect way to start my new training phase. Everyday I wake up and walk the dogs for about an hour, then I am walking around exploring the city, and finally, I end the day walking the dogs for another hour. 20K steps is pretty easy to achieve in this environment, and the dark leafy greens are fresh and tasty here.

I am also feeling like I’ve gotten over my jet-lag, and my calves are very tired and sore from all the walking, so I’ll be working in at least 1 YouTube yoga class while I’m here.

As always, my workouts will all be tracked in the Hevy App, and all extra activities like hot-girl walks and running errands will be tracked in my FitBit app. I take a picture after (almost) every workout as well, so I can keep track of how my body adapts to the new training phase.

I’d love to know if you are also thinking of updating your training phase? Did you know about endurance training before reading this? Do you have a favourite endurance exercise? Let me know if the comments below!