Hi and welcome to Get Fit Guy. This is Kevin Don. For my listeners in the Northern Hemisphere, or those of you in the northern area of the flat earth, it's heading into winter.

This means that some of you will poke your little toes out from under the blankie, quickly pull them back in and say,

screw the gym this morning. Or maybe you do like the brisk and bracing weather and you head out

early first thing for a circuit at your local park, or maybe to the gym, which may not have

proper heating and lead to you feeling

quite stiff and unprepared when you arrive. So today I'm going to cover a bunch of helpful

stuff for you about training when it's cold. So cold weather presents some unique challenges for

fitness enthusiasts and athletes who want to maintain their workout routines and achieve their

fitness goals. Exercising in cold weather requires special considerations because the cold affects

muscle function, it can increase the risk of injury and make it more challenging to stay motivated.

So let's just look at some of the physiological effects of the cold. So first of all,

you've got decreased muscle temperature. So when the temperature of your muscles decrease,

they become less elastic, which leads to the increased risk of strains and tears.

Next thing is reduce blood flow. So cold leads to facial constriction which is a

narrowing of your blood vessels which decreases blood flow to the muscles this impairs oxygen

delivery to the muscle during workout and it also impedes recovery after workout because we

don't have nutrients getting delivered properly to the area.

Next thing is we've got decreased lung function and this is because cold air, just like the

cold weather narrows your blood vessels, it narrows and constricts your airways. This leads to

decreased lung function, making it harder to breathe or have a consistent

breathing rhythm during workouts. And finally, on the sort of more extreme end of the scale,

it's possible to get hypothermia. So exercising in really cold conditions or without

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