Back when I primarily strength trained, we’d throw around the idea of writing down lots of different workouts specific for a certain group of muscles (upper body, lower body, arms, shoulders, etc). Then, you’d take those workouts written on paper, fold em up and throw them into a “fishbowl” (anything would work). Then, for the sake of variety, you would draw out the workout you would do for that scheduled muscle group on that day.
You could make as many workouts as you’re willing to do. ON “lower body” day, you’d pull out a random workout and do it, then next week, pick out a different one, etc.
Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had done anything like this regarding swim, bike, and run sessions. I was thinking of this as I wondered where everyone else got their ideas for different workouts or if folks just basically did the same thing week in and week out.
When I was young, once a year we’d do a ‘pull from the hat’ swim workout. I think it was 50/50 on hard (normal) sets, and fun/easy sets. We’d always hope for the ‘I hear thunder, I see lightning, 10 minute shower break’ workout, or the ‘Sprinters Delight, 50m sprint’.
Now I am stuck in a rut, I do the same 5k swim workout 3 days a week. I don’t have the energy or creativity to come up with new workouts/sets every week.
A buddy of mine who used to row crew introduced me to working out with a deck of cards. Pick four strength exercises (pull-ups, sit-ups, whatever) and assign a suit to that exercise. Shuffle and turn the cards over, and do the corresponding reps. Whenever I’ve finished the deck, I’d be shaking furiously from the effort. My guess is you could convert it somehow on a drill day for tri workouts, but I haven’t figured out how yet.
One of my swim teams did dart board Fridays. Each set on the dart board would be 600-800 yards long. The outer ring sets were slightly easier, and a couple of the inner ring sets were pretty hard. But if someone threw a bull’s eye you got to play water polo for half an hour, so there was always someone trying to hit the middle of the target.
Now I am stuck in a rut, I do the same 5k swim workout 3 days a week. I don’t have the energy or creativity to come up with new workouts/sets every week.
As someone that’s getting ready to stare dark, cold, mostly rainy/snowy, winter days in the face, I’m trying to proactively come up with something other than “Run for 30 minutes” (or bike or swim or whatever) for every day throughout the winter. I don’t want “contemplate suicide” (due to boredom) to appear in my training log.
For all 3 disciplines one can steal individual workouts from the pre-made gneeral programs at TNO/BT. I was just tyring to think of the least hassle, most random way to balance volume, intensity and duration during winter months.
I try to, as slowman put it, put my fitness to good use and explore. I usually try to find a new trail or route to run, hike or ski every few weeks during the fall and winter. I also take an occasional swim clinic and go to a coached track workout during the week so I usually get some new workouts and maybe meet some new people to train with. Winter is the best time for group endurance workouts, everyone is more flexible on pace and misery loves company.
TT - I know it’s not very helpful to you (looking for innovative SBR workouts), but I’d love to see some of your lifting routines, if possible. I’m in a rut there - the only thing I enjoy is seeing how heavy I can deadlift. In workout #2 you said “trap bar” deadlifts. Trap bar being the shorter, curl type bar with oval grips, or the standard length bar with the “s” bends (which would seem more logical because you can load more weight on them? How often did/do you hit one muscle group? When you say “lower body,” do you include back in that (thus the DLs)? Any others would be great. Thanks!