In the world of fitness, sticking to the same routine can feel safe but may be holding you back from achieving your goals. Monotony often leads to plateaus, boredom, and even injuries. By incorporating variety into your workouts, you can not only keep your sessions fun but also maximize your results. This post highlights how to diversify your routine and why it is essential for your fitness journey.
Understanding the Importance of Variety in Workouts
When you start a new workout program, the excitement keeps you motivated. But, as your body adapts to the same exercises, you may notice a decline in progress—this is called a plateau. For example, if you consistently perform squats without variation, you'll eventually stop seeing improvements in strength and endurance. Our bodies are masters at adaptation, so if we continuously stimulate the same muscles and neural pathways, it takes less effort to reach the same results. If you want progress, keep your body guessing!
Introducing a range of exercises keeps your muscles challenged and engaged. By varying your workouts, you can stimulate different muscle groups and reduce the risk of overuse injuries. Changing your routine every 4 to 6 weeks can significantly improve strength and endurance, helping you achieve sustainable long-term results. In the strength and conditioning world, this is considered periodization blocks. There are various strategies to how you can create blocks and progress dependent upon sport, but 4-6 weeks one of the most common and effective ways create structure, including rest or down weeks!
Techniques to Shake Up Your Routine
There are numerous ways to add freshness to your workout regimen. Here are some effective techniques:
1. Alter Your Training Style Throughout the Week
Experimenting with different training styles can lead to significant improvements. For instance, alternate between strength training, cardio workouts, and flexibility exercises. Overuse, burnout and injuries happen when we train one specific way. Have you ever started training for a half marathon/marathon, triathlon and felt overwhelmed by the volume of training so you only stuck to running, or swim/bike/run? These are likely the times injuries or simple aches/pains, fatigue, irritability, etc. have snuck up on you because cross-training and mobility, among, others have been neglected. While structure is good, variability is crucial. Just like sitting for 8 hours at a desk is bad for our posture, running every day with no other forms of strength training or mobility can cause injuries, and if it doesn't cause injuries, it most certainly will lead to burnout and impact our psychological state.
2. Experiment with New Activities
This is important! We are most likely to get injured when we venture outside of our norm. For example, if you only run, you are more likely to get injured playing tennis or soccer as the demands are much different than running and your body may not adequately be prepared for this. Incorporating new activities or simply new exercises into your cross-training days, you introduce greater stability and resilience to your body. Simple ideas include:
Yoga or Pilates classes (YouTube has great at home options as well!)
Balance drills: this can include single leg drills, a foam balance pad, or the bosu ball. Try doing your normal exercises like squats on these or even stand on a single leg as you work upper body like bicep curls. A personal favorite is single leg sit to stands!
Plyometrics: this may look like jumping jacks, jump rope at lower levels, or box jumps, switch jumps, depth jumps, and bounds at higher levels. Whatever it looks like to you and your level of fitness, training plyo trains our type II explosive fibers which helps our power and efficiency.
3. Alter the Duration and Frequency
Changing how long and how often you work out pays off too. Instead of always doing an hour in the gym or track, try short but intense sessions or longer sessions at a gentler pace. For example, a 20-minute high-intensity workout can burn as many calories as an hour of steady state cardio. Diversifying your workout duration keeps your body guessing and engaged. In order to gain speed, we have to train speed....in order to run or bike far, we have to push our endurance. When you mix up duration and frequency, you train different metabolic processes and muscle fibers meaning you are better equipped to handle what the world is throwing at you!
4. Incorporate Different Equipment
If you're used to machines, add in free weights, resistance bands, or bodyweight exercises. Each piece of equipment offers unique benefits, stimulating your muscles in various ways. For instance, a kettlebell swing engages multiple muscle groups, improving strength and coordination, compared to a basic machine exercise. Basic machine exercises are great placed towards the end of a workout when you are more fatigued as it is generally safer and requires less overall muscle recruitment - these are generally more isolated recruitments. So, if you are struggling to recruit a muscle (Glutes!) perhaps the abductor machine, leg press, or glute kickbacks are a great place to start.
Elevating Your Fitness Journey
Diversifying your workout routine is essential for a successful fitness journey. By embracing variety, you can improve your physical gains, enhance mental health, and ultimately lead a healthier, more enjoyable life. Whether through changing your techniques, trying new activities, or setting updated goals, the unpredictable elements in your routine can become your best asset in fulfilling your fitness aspirations. So, step outside your comfort zone and watch your fitness journey thrive!
Kommentare