As summer is rapidly approaching, we're spending more time outside, doing the things we love. For most of us, that means we're heavily engaging in our one or two favorite sports. It's easy to fall into weekend warrior syndrome - play hard all weekend, get really sore, spend the first few days of the week recovering, have a gentle workout or two the rest of the week, start over... Or, if we're the more motivated sort, we may fall into the other extreme - in our attempts to be at our best, we may crank up the intensity and work on lots of sport-specific exercises. Unfortunately, either approach is a pretty high-probability path to injury - and may also seriously compromise your fitness level and your performance in your main sport - as you either atrophy in areas not directly engaged by your sport, or set yourself up for over-use injuries by stressing those areas that are.

Instead, pay attention to cross training. Windsurfing is a great example of this - it's a great full-body workout, but it's not necessarily aerobic, and while the dynamic movement can really load up the back and shoulders and hips, that loading can be pretty erratic. Unless I cross-train, my aerobic capacity (and thus my body's ability to recover, as well as my general health) decline. And unless I really work on stabilizing my core and my shoulders, and working on hip and low back stability, my body's ability to handle those peak loads without injury (not to mention my ability to perform my best on the water) really take a hit.

So this is the time for me to seriously alter my routine. If I get to sail a lot during a particular week, I'll cut back on pullups and rows (as sailing keeps those muscles plenty strong) - but I'll pay extra attention to working my abs and obliques and hip flexors, and on maintaining my dynamic range of motion, and I'll work in some extra cardio as well. Depending on what your sport is, your approach may vary, but ask yourself whether you're either letting important parts of your fitness slide, or whether you're perhaps setting yourself up for injury by stressing the same parts of your body in the gym that took a serious beating over the weekend when you went climbing, or mountain biking, or golfing, etc. Perhaps this would be a good time to work with a personal trainer - BAC has some truly excellent ones, and I keep witnessing them in the gym working with their clients to truly meet their needs and get them to a higher level of fitness.