It is very easy to fall into a routine or even a rut when it comes to exercise, going on auto pilot and finding a comfortable workout routine that we do time and time again. Although you could argue that getting repetitive exercise in is better than doing nothing, you might be doing yourself a disservice. Why? Your body is smart. If you make it do something repetitively, over time, it will get used to it and become so good at it that you don’t have to work that hard anymore.
When it comes to exercise, the idea is to challenge your body—to make it stronger, to keep it on its toes. You’ve probably seen people who make great strides at the beginning of an exercise program and then hit a point where they can’t progress anymore. This happens because once your body gets used to an exercise, it starts to not respond as much and your results (e.g., fat loss, increased muscle tone, etc.) start to slow down and maybe even stop. This is called “hitting a plateau.” How do you overcome this? Variation. And from a mental perspective, variation will keep you from getting bored.
Diversifying your exercise doesn’t always mean changing everything about every workout every time. Here are a few examples of how to change it up:
Cardio
Different Exercises: To change up your aerobic exercise routines, find different types of exercise—biking, swimming, running, power-walking, elliptical training.
Different Activities: Break out of the mold and find activities you enjoy that are less conventional:
- Rollerblading
- Jump Roping
- Hiking/Mountain Climbing
- Rowing
Different Programs: If all you like to do is run, you can still incorporate variation. How? Here is a plan for a week:
- Day 1: Interval training course—repetitively sprinting for 2 minutes and then jogging for 5 minutes for a total of a 30-minute workout.
- Day 2: Hills—30 minutes.
- Day 3: Flat endurance jogging at a steady pace for 45 to 50 minutes.
If you run on a treadmill, you can select the corresponding pre-programmed courses on the machine to help you. You can apply this approach to any type of cardio exercise—walking, arc trainer/elliptical trainers, biking, etc.
