What? No swimming on weekends?
No, I take Saturday and Sunday off from swimming. My body, specifically my shoulders and elbows need time to recover. So, the weekend I take a break from swimming. Generally speaking, I take off holidays and vacations too. Rest and recovery are just as important as fitness.
However, for me, I need the everyday consistency to build a habit. Rarely would a Monday, Wednesday, Friday routine stick. Or just a Tuesday/Thursday routine. There are too many off days. Too many reasons to skip the next workout. I need the streak and the routine. Now, It’s my thing. I swim every morning Monday through Friday.
Saturday’s, I still do a small leg and core workout with a longer stretching or yoga routine. It really depends on what family obligations I have scheduled.
On Saturday and Sunday, I walk pending the weather. I’m a fair-weather outdoor exerciser. If I feel it’s too cold, too hot, too snowy, or too rainy, then I will skip. It’s more about recovery and keeping limber. Keeping my streak alive.
There is power in streaks.
-Scott
Sometime in 2012, I stumbled upon Jerry Seinfeld’s don’t break the chain strategy. It reminded me of inertia and the streak phenomenon. Although Seinfeld’s calendar strategy was the first to make it super simple for me. Of course, sometimes we need lessons to be reinforced. We need to hear it, read it, see it, and do it repeatedly for it to become really ingrained. Life happens, and I fell off the wagon. Writing, Networking, Building, and even Exercising. Slowly, I have worked my way back. My exercise consistency started around Sept 2019. I was swimming about 30 minutes a day. Before that I was erratic and inconsistent with my workouts. A swim here, a bike ride there. A couple of things helped to make swimming a habit.
- Seeing my kids addicted to “snapping” friends. They never wanted to break their snap streak. It’s such a simple thing: “Don’t break the chain”
- Secondly, I was able to hook my early exercise habit to another must do habit: Driving my son and daughter to middle school. For our school district, Middle School starts earlier. Also, it just so happens that my local pool is between the school and my house. Here’s the Hook: It was super easy to drop the kids off, and then on the way home stop at the pool. Get in a swim, and then get to work.
- Tracking and measuring my exercise to create a streak. I started using the app LoseIt to track my exercise and connected LoseIt to my withings scale. So, I had one place to see exercise, weight measurements, and eventually food tracking.
- Adding an Apple Watch. The Apple Watch really helped me track and measure my swims much more effectively. I have always used different swim watches to help track my laps, but something about the Apple Watch helped me with my tracking. I did not have to think about it really. I just started the swim workout. When I used other swim watches, I had the data, but it was locked away in the watch. It was dependent on me transferring it to LoseIt or a spreadsheet. Too many steps. The Apple Watch made it simple.
Saturday’s Dryland exercises:
- 60 seconds jog in place
- 12 reps inner leg
- 12 reps outer leg
- Upper Abs: 15 crunches
- Upper Abs: 12 full situps
- Lower Abs: 12 Full Leg ups
- Lower Abs: 12 knee ups
- Side Abs: 60 second side plank each side
- Side Abs: Russian Twists with legs up and 12 pound kettle balls
- Back: 12 reverse exercise ball crunches
- Full Core: 75 second planks
- then I do a 30 to 45 minute full-body stretching routine.
Enjoy!