Friday Fitness Fact – Change it up

Changing your workout routine often helps to keep you interested – mind and body. Consistency is important when it comes to exercise but it doesn’t need to go all the way to doing the same exact exercise for months on end. So change up your aerobics class ever 3-4 weeks.

What Should You Change to?

If you are taking aerobics classes, talk to the instructor. Ask for suggestions on what s/he thinks you might like, since you enjoy their class. Ask around to other participants and your friends and family. See what they do to stay in shape. You might be pleasantly surprised. There are all sorts of physical activities out there that can give you great cardio and toning benefits. Just remember to keep the same objectives. If you are shooting for 45 minutes of cardio work in each exercise make sure that you are still getting it if you decide to try something new. Please do give yourself a week or so of leeway when you start a new activity. It can take a bit of time to learn the “moves” or catch the “rhythm” of a new activity and you need to give yourself a chance to learn a bit.

If you are an independent exerciser – free weights and maybe the treadmill or elliptical you should add different moves to your workout. There are lots of websites out there that can show you some new moves and techniques. If it is available to you, spend a session with a trainer every other month. They can help you with new ways to focus on your trouble zones. You can also find a number of books and magazines that are chock-full of techniques and variations on exercises you may already do.

When to Make a Change?

 A good rule of thumb is when something gets “easy” it’s time to find a new challenge. If you have started out with a routine that you could barely drag yourself through and now you are breezing through the same routine without really sweating, you are in effect wasting your time. The more you do an certain exercise the more your body adapts to it, accommodating the movements with the least expenditure of energy. Essentially our body’s instinct is almost always to find the path of least resistance. So once we have achieved this with a certain exercise it is time to make the conscious changes to continue to benefit from working out. Another important point to consider is that, unless you are a professional athlete, you want to shot for a more general, all-over level of fitness, not say – really powerful arms for a baseball player. By changing your workouts around you can insure that you are using all your muscle groups and not just some.

Rotation is Okay Too

You may have some forms of exercises that you really really enjoy and are remiss to leave at the wayside. Try to work out a seasonal rotation. With each passing season go to a new routine and then cycle back the following season.