Winter can be a time when the body should rest. That doesn't mean it needs to be still.
This is written for the person who may not have a pressing event or race in the winter time. If you’re competing or have an event in springtime, your training needs during winter months will differ from what is here. I will cover that in a second follow up article.
As winter cues us in for a time of rest and restoration, so should your training. As the amount of UV and daylight lessens, your bodies ability to rest and recover from higher intensity training changes. I think this is tied to the UV light available. The lesser amounts signal to your body that the environment is changing and so should training. I think this is tied to light cycles. Less solar strength tells your body resources aren’t there and there isn’t as abundant light to sustain you.
This doesn’t mean you stop moving and become a couch creature by any means. You should embrace the season and learn to thrive in it. Here’s how we do this and maintain our quantum health, which I consider the foundation of everything else in how well your body responds and thrives.
Training during Daylight
Train during daylight hours as much as possible. I know work and life don’t always align with the light cycles but I need to emphasize this. The more hours you train in blue light after sunset the more your body gets confused. The blue light is picked up by visual and non visual photo receptors. When they sense the light they’re assuming that it’s the middle of the day since that’s when light is strongest. So, that in turn causes your body to lower and delay the release of melatonin and keep cortisol from late exercise raised.
Pick things that allow you to recover well but still give you a high value. It’s likely that the training will take place indoors under blue light, so I suggest that if you must do this to make the best of it. I train in a blue lit gym because I like moving weights. However, I do take some measures to offset my blue light exposure with blue blockers, sleeves, hat and training during daytime if possible. If you enjoy or must do endurance, again do it outside. No sunglasses either.
Strength training is something that should be a mainstay in any training program, in my opinion. One should consider strength as a skill rather than simply movement produced by the body. One key piece of improving strength is learning to strain. Strain is best learned under heavy load or some sort of maximum effort. If you push or pull a car you need to strain and produce force that causes the car to move from rest. You'll strain during a heavy squat or deadlift. You can also strain without much motion! consider the car example where you try with all your might and nothing moves..thats still a production of force and strain, though its insufficient to move the car. Sad!
In addition to training outside the cold exposure that promotes cold thermogenesis while you exercise aligns better with nature and your mitochondria health. You see, the cold works in our favor. When you are exposed to the cold, your mitochondria work harder to produce heat and yes, light. That light is given off by as a an ultra-weak photon emission, or a UPE. Now this occurs in billions of cells, making the total generation a pronounced effect. The photon emission given off happens to be in the UV range, which is what is lacking in the winter. This hints at the need for you to get cold in the winter. Think of the cold as your ‘light’ you need during the winter.
Plus, doing lunges and pull-ups when there’s snow on the ground looks awesome. You’ll feel like a million sats afterwards too.
We are meant to live and thrive outside. Sure we have had terrific advances in technology that allow us to really enjoy the winter months, but our biology is still tied to the natural environment. This is why we should aim to train during daylight hours when our circadian clocks time for peak activity is highest.
Training outside of Daylight Hours
If your schedule doesn’t permit you to train at those hours, just do as best you can. Realize though that you’ll need to stack the deck in your favor to keep your circadian clocks ticking best. This includes: seeing sunrise (utmost important), lessening amount of artificial blue light during pre dawn and post sunset hours, daily cold exposure. If you need to train in the morning, wear blue blockers with yellow lenses if you can AND make sure you see the sunrise. Take a break and get out to see it with naked eyes and as much naked skin as possible. Roll down the car windows on your way to work and get some cold exposure along the way (yes be that guy/gal). If your training occurs after sunset, wear yellow lense blue blockers during the session if you can.
When you’re done training indoors immediately prioritize low light at night and some cold. Take your shirt off in the parking lot, cold plunge, roll in the snow. Get cold. You need to minimize the light at night for the rise in melatonin to have good sleep. If your sleep sucks, your health and recovery will start to suck. BUT, you can stack the deck in your favour on this by getting as much natural light as possible. If you use red lights at night you’re a rockstar. Breathing is also an overlooked method to calm the body as well.
If you were already training a lot outside of daylight hours, I suggest seeing if you can reduced your weekly volume by a third. If you seem to recover better then you know you’re on the right track for sustaining the training. Training later in the day will keep cortisol up and interfere with melatonin to prompt you into deep sleep. If you’re still not recovering as much, then you’ll want to make sure your circadian habits and light-dark cycles are in sync. Those, I find, will make it so you need less training and get more out of it.
See below for what to do when training in daylight vs post-sunset.
Daylight Training
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See the sunrise with naked eyes and as much skin as possible
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Wear yellow blue blockers when indoors
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Get cold after training if you were warm during training
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Low light at night, see the sunset
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Eat something small before training and something larger after training
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Get some sort of daily cold exposure around 10+ minutes cumulatively

Post Sunset training
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Still see the sunrise.
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Wear yellow blue blockers indoors if possible
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Prioritize low light conditions as soon as possible.
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Eat a meal as soon as possible. Don’t starve but avoid massive meals before bed
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Get some sort of daily and post exercise cold exposure