Although we are still looking mostly damp from the past day's rain, snow season is upon us. As I drove to Willey's Store in Greensboro, I was surrounded by a perfect white dusting signifying the legitimate start of winter. Typically for rowers, snow means tons of sweaty hours spent indoors. I refuse to only stay inside when there is snow. I am a firm believer in cross training and Craftsbury has convinced me that cross-country skiing is perfect cross-training for rowing, so I’m eager for the snow to fall.

Cross-training is an important part of any sport as it keeps your body active while alleviating sport specific stress to muscles and joints, resulting in increased fitness and decreased injury. I would love to find an article that numerates the exact amount of time one could or should spend cross training in the middle of a training season, but like everything else, I think it has to be based on one's own body needs. I like at least 3-5 workouts  of my 15 workouts/week to be spent x-training and am constantly exploring new ways of pushing myself with other sports - especially outside.

You can’t always be outdoors though, and it's this drive for cross training perfection that has created the best indoor and traveling workout, all on your Blackberry/iPhone!!!  Start with some basic intervals of

aaaaaaa

lllllll

liiiiii

nnnnnn

eeeee

xxxxx

- just some letter keys to get your fingers moving and at rapid succession.

Once comfortable with this, move into the heart of the pieces, with some level 2 and alternate symbols, like:  +)=)=0+0)))). Be sure to throw in some shifts/capitalization and odd key combos to keep things fresh and really stretch. This is a great opportunity to find your own 1X6 or 20X20 intervals. Ahh the fun never ends! The increased thumb strength will come in handy sculling next summer to keep pressure on the collar. And to add more fun to this already entertaining sweat fest you can also text it to people to annoyingly provoke them to work-out too!In all sincerity, the best real indoor work-out we have incorporated into our weekly schedule is the body circuit. This work-out is so great that I was sore for a whole week afterwards, which is saying a lot. The goal of the circuit is to get in as much work as possible in a short amount of time.Typically I love the lazy weight lift where I can meander from one exercise to another, taking my time in-between sets and basically chilling out in a B.O. soaked room. However, this casual work-out was ruined for me when I learned that this is pretty ineffective at anything but wasting time. The circuit gets your heart-rate up and high rep exercises increase the body's explosive reactivity. We are currently doing 9 exercises; 3 legs, 3 arms, 3 abs - which are top secret...just kidding. They are:  jumpies, lunge jumps, 1 leg squats, ab roller, ab pike, Pepa's bike, push-ups, pull-ups, bench dips. But there is nothing magical about those nine - I just picked them because that was what I wanted to increase in fitness - you should pick them based on the same value system.Another great thing about training in-doors is it makes you love the out-of-doors so much more. If nothing else, the indoor work reminds me to really value the outdoor playground!