When the Weather Sucks, Stay Active Indoors

After what felt like endless rain in Los Angeles – a city famous for barely getting any – every active person I know, myself included, was losing it a little. I play a lot of outdoor sports: paddle tennis, golf, basketball, and even flying.

If the paddle courts are crowded, I golf. If golf is packed, I check the basketball court, or I fly. I’m a student pilot, so getting my hours in right now is critical to achieving my certification.

This November; however, ranked among the wettest on record in Los Angeles, and living next to the coastline, the marine layer never seemed to give us a break. If your sport required a sky that wasn’t leaking, you were out of luck.

Don’t get me wrong, I do know what real winter is. I grew up in Canada where we shovel snow for seven months a year, or an eternity as I think of it now that I live in SoCal. Back then, a winter escape meant Vermont or New York where the snow might drop from five feet to three — at least the sun eventually showed up back East. Even on the coldest days, it peeked out and bounced off the fresh white ground.

Sure, I don’t need a winter jacket, boots, or mitts in LA. I do still have to figure out how to train, move, and stay sane when all my favorite sports happen outdoors. Instagram suggested bouncing tennis balls off my living room wall or attempting the dreaded indoor jog. My upstairs neighbor tried that for three months after New Year’s and created a daily 6.2 magnitude fitness earthquake. I briefly considered swapping tennis balls for ping pong balls, but even that felt risky after knocking over a water glass or two at home. I needed something quieter, less breakable, and more respectful for both my training and my furniture. 

After weathering a week of steady rain and discovering what definitely doesn’t work indoors, I landed on five priorities that kept me sane and moving:

1. Work on the skills you wish you have time for.

Bad weather is basically saying: Hey, struggling to catch the ball? Learn how to juggle.

• Tennis: Practice soft-touch volleys against a pillow. 

• Runners: Add crampons (spikes) to your shoes or embrace rain gear.

• Golfers: Patch up the dents from last storm’s “apartment mini-golf” experiment

• Pilots-in-training: Chair fly. Go through checklists, practice flow. Honestly, you should be doing this even on sunny days — it saves tons of money when you’re actually in the air.

• Cyclists: Try an indoor spin class. 

• Everyone: Stretch. Stretch every muscle until you start to think you’ve taken up yoga.

2. Use one hobby to train another.

After yet another cancelled flight – one more delay in getting closer to my private pilot’s license – I walked into the hangar hoping the Aviation Weather map would magically clear. Instead, I heard a soft rhythm: twrap, twrap.

A small group was practicing arnis – the Filipino stick art – right next to a light sport airplane. No complaints about the weather. No disappointment. They simply used the space they had for something totally different. 

It reminded me of moving our summer Tai Chi classes from the park to the Legion Hall. Even though the grounding and balancing benefits were now on a wood floor, I still got my dose of Chi (read my last story on the benefits of this practice The Quiet Power of Tai Chi). Imagining a stick flinging from sweaty hands straight into a wingtip, empty-hand training is probably the safer option near airplanes.

One thing is certain: cross-train everything. Bruce Lee practiced Tai Chi, loved dancing (including the cha-chat), and became the most influential martial artist in the world. In his downtime, he wrote The Tao of Jeet Kune Do. He understood what blending skills can do, which brings me to point number three.

3. Sharpen your mind.

Mental clarity matters, and sometimes the simplest tools make the biggest difference. Write things down, sketch out flight patterns, draft tennis or pickleball strategies, or even study a few Instagram golf swing tutorials (just be careful not to get lost in the algorithm).

Look at the Dodgers’ World Series win this year; Miguel Rojas pulled out his notes between plays, using them to stay locked in during the most pressure‑packed moments. That kind of preparation proved decisive, and it’s a reminder that your own crib notes made in your downtime could be the edge that turns frustration into focus and maybe even your next ace or hole‑in‑one.

4. Clean your gear.

Nothing is worse than smelly equipment. Gear is expensive, and taking care of it makes it last. Cleaning it is the athlete’s version of sharpening a sword.

• Runners: Clean your shoes and replace insoles.

• Golfers: Scrub those grooves.

• Tennis and paddle players: Change your grips, restring your racquets.

• Cyclists: Lubricate your chain and wipe down your frame. Inspect your brakes and tires.

• Pilots: Reorganize your gear bag like you’re prepping for a cross-country flight.

Maintenance is a mindset. It can be productive, even meditative (see cross-training in point 2).

5. Let the weather win ... briefly.

Like with any worthy opponent, sometimes you must accept the loss. Take the day. Sip something warm. Watch your sport instead of doing it. Visualize. Reset.

Athletes are not machines. Even Olympians take breaks. Weather delays are not the end of progress; they are where creativity sneaks in. Take the chance to try something new, take up a sport you’ve never played, or explore a different way to move. When the sun does come back, you will be ready: balanced, refreshed, and surprisingly grateful to have had the unexpected time away from the hustle.

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