Pushing Through the Dark Ages
- Getting Ready for Spring -
Winter Run at Sandy Point State Park (Maryland)
The time between Jan. 1 and the start of spring can feel like the Dark Ages. Of course, the more southern your location, the less it's likely that seasonal changes will affect you, but those feelings can still occur as the days are short and outdoor activities are reduced.
If you are starting to feel the strains of the season and your New Year's resolutions have faded, realize that your situation is a common one. The official term used to describe the more serious symptoms of the "Dark Ages" or "winter blues" is Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).
According to the Mayo Clinic, there's a long list of symptoms:
- Weight gain due to increased snacking and decreased physical activity
- Loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed
- Having low energy
- Having problems with oversleeping
- Feeling sluggish or agitated
- Having difficulty concentrating
- Feeling anxious
- Feeling hopeless, worthless or guilty
- Feeling depressed most of the day, nearly every day
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Training Programming Options
My most recent programs that walk you through these four cycles with 12 weeks of each season in two programs.
Calisthenics and Cardio - No Equipment Needed Guide For Body Weight Exercisers and maybe a good option for people of all fitness levels to stay home or get outside and train.Calisthenics and Cardio Workout is built with beginners, intermediate, and advanced in mind and focuses on limited equipment. It would definitely fall into the Spring / Summer part of the programming:
Other EBOOKS (Military, Police, Fire Fighter, Special Ops, General Fitness) – Most of my programs tend to focus on getting TO and THROUGH a specific tactical training program. So you may see a mix of all the seasons in some of these books, but if you are training long term, you can take advantage of Seasonal Periodization and save yourself some of the over-use, long term pains that tend to follow many of the tactical preparations - especially on the spec ops level of training.
Start training today with workouts that focus on the specifics of getting to and through tactical profession training from firefighter, police, swat, military to special ops. We have programs to help you get TO and THROUGH training. We also have training programs to help you with training as you age in these professions (Tactical Fitness 40+ series).
and even more at Complete List of Books / eBooks...
Programs that follow Seasonal Periodization Training
BOOKS – Eleven Published Tactical Fitness Books and more than 30 other printed programs specifically designed for a special test, event, or selection training program or training cycle.
Tactical Fitness - Walks through all the phases / seasons of tactical fitness
Tactical Strength - This is my Fall / Winter Lift Cycle with more of a strength / power lifting cycle compared to Maximum Fitness Winter Lift Cycle.
Tactical Mobility - You have to do mobility regularly - year round.
Warrior Workouts Vol 1 | Vol 2 | Vol 3 - All three books of Warrior Workouts contain 100 workouts each. They are organized by calisthenics only, cardio, weights / cals mixed, and weight only. Warrior Workouts 1 is organized with seasonal periodization is mind. These are individual workouts you place into your program ala-carte. These books are not part of system or program - just individual workouts for your choosing each day.
The Complete Guide to Navy SEAL Fitness - This is ALL calisthenics and cardio (run / swim). Basically a high rep / moderate to high volume of running and swimming with SEAL training specifically in mind. It is essentially a Summer training cycle.
Navy SEAL Weight Training Workout - This is a Fall / Winter training cycle with SEAL Training in mind - complete with cardio (run, swim, ruck), lifting for logs and boats, as well as still maintaining calisthenics scores.
Maximum Fitness - This is a 52 week program that was my first full year of Seasonal Periodization as discussed above. The Winter Lift Cycle is more of a hypertrophy body building routine with some isolation exercises as it is meant to help rebuild the joints, put on mass in the Winter. But the Spring, Summer, Fall are similar to other programs - just different.
The SWAT Workout - Is a mix of PT Test Prep for Academy training that advances into SWAT Tryouts, and active SWAT Team member. It is a mix of Spring / Summer and Fall / Winter with the Run / lift cycles. But much of the running can be replaced with non-impact cardio if needed.
Special Ops Workout - Is a mix of foundation building program for aspiring Special Operators with specific training programs for Army Ranger / SF, Navy SEALs, and Air Force PJ. This program was written before MarSOC was part of SOCOM, so we offer the MarSOC / RECON workout EBOOK for free with the purchase of this program. I would call this a good intermediate to advanced level of fitness preparation.
Do You Want my REAL TIME Seasonal Periodization Training?
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Stew Smith Training programs.
Stew Smith Fitness Membership – You have access to years of workouts for both beginner / intermediate and advanced / special ops levels of fitness. Each week you will receive new and unpublished workouts being tested by Navy SEAL veteran / Stew Smith CSCS and his local group of future tactical professionals in both basic training and advanced spec ops training programming. The latest videos, articles, and other programming will be part of the weekly data feed to members as well. We go through the Seasonal Tactical Fitness Periodization program one week at a time.
If You Need a More Personalized Approach to Fit Your Needs, Goals, Time per Day, Days per week, Facilities, Abilities, etc...Try Online Coaching
Online Personal Coaching – Receive one on one training with Stew Smith as he personally designed programs for you that fit your schedule (time per day / days per week), abilities, facilities / equipment, and goals. There personally designed programs for YOU are received one week at a time and each week YOUR feedback helps to create the following week of training. We work around issues that get in the way of our typical training days – injury / aches / pains, work, family, travel, and deadlines. Call and talk to Stew to see if it is right for you.
Best of all, if you have questions, email Stew Smith himself (Stew@stewsmith.com). Join the tactical fitness group discussions, latest articles, videos, podcasts at the Stew Smith Tactical Fitness Training Closed Group on Facebook.