It’s cold. It’s dark. By late January, big volume endurance training starts to get boring and repetitive for club-level athletes. Spring’s a long way off. How to keep motivated?

This weekend I organized a two-hour continuous workout for athletes of my rowing club, using the great athletic facility at the University of Toronto – Mississauga. All told, this consisted of 30 minutes of Concept 2 rowing, 30 minutes of bodyweights (jump squats, pushups, etc.), 20 minutes of spinning, 20 minutes of running, and 10 minutes each of Concept 2 skierg and athletes-choice training. This training was done in twelve different stations of 10 minutes each, done consecutively (example: erg, bodyweights, run, spin, skierg, bodyweights, free choice, erg, body weights, run, spin).

We’ve done two of these long multi-sport workouts this winter – here’s what has worked so far.

Maintain Some Familiarity: Rowers need to row. Runners need to run. Riders need to spin. Your program should include your main sport in its mix. But you can change that activity slightly. In our case, we made use of the Concept 2 sliders, which better simulate how a rowing shell moves.

Train Together but Mix Things Up: Winter training is an ideal time to team-build. Doing hard work as a group is one way to do that. At the same time, find opportunities to combine athletes who do not normally train or compete together. During the two-hour session, participants each had their individual station itinerary, training with different people at each one.

Include Activities Your Athletes are Bad At: endurance athletes are good at doing the same thing over and over, but don’t spend much time on agility or coordination skills outside their sport. For a bit of challenge, put in some playtime. This weekend, I had rowers do some “wall climbing” and also try to throw and catch tennis balls in a variety of ways, with humorous results.