With warm weather rolling into the North East, spring training has officially started. Time to get outside and enjoy one of the nicest times of the year. It is also time to step up your game and get in great shape for summer.

The following are three changes you can make to help get lean for summer, kick up your conditioning for outdoor sports, and keep the strength you worked hard for all winter

Drop one or two of your weight training days and replace with outdoor physical activity. For me, this means getting my road bike out of hibernation and adding at least two, one hour long, rides to my week. The extra calories burned help keep it tight and negate some summertime consumption. Other great activities are trail runs, swimming, sports, etc.
Cycle your carbs and calories. This isn't as fancy as it it sounds. On days you train up your carbs a bit. On off or low volume days, drop your carbs and overall calorie consumption. If you keep calories light all week and are already lean, add in a re-feed day on the weekend. I double my calories on re-feed days. Some eat less and others more. You will have to experiment to see what works best for you.
Give your joints a rest and use bodyweight exercises for the core of your workouts. Do this outside of course. Bodyweight training is as hard as you want to make it, do it right and you will get stronger. A big benefit of bodyweight training is that it is much easier on your joints than traditional weight training.

There you have it, a surefire plan to attack your spring training and enjoy the weather. Take action and go train!