Why you should change your exercise routine
My family is rather partial to a habit. My brother has eaten the same cereal for breakfast every day since he was about six (he's now nearly 40), while I tend to run the same route at the same pace every time.
Let's leave his (questionable) cereal-eating habits alone for now, and look at the routine of exercise. It can be comforting and easy and meditative to do the same thing day in and day out, but if you want to improve (anything – your strength, your speed, your range of motion, your abilities, your body weight or shape) you need to shake it up.
Thankfully, for the Groundhog-dayers among us, not all the time. Keep up what you love, but inject novelty into your workouts as our bodies adapt or the same exercise becomes less effective.
The good news is that we don't need to go harder to get results, you just need to go differently.
It could be lighter weights with more reps or just changing the exercise – curls, rows, shoulder presses and tricep kickbacks. It could mean changing your stance or the bar position or going from sets and reps to time on/time off.
"Every eight to 12 weeks shake your training up and do something different, get rid of the machine weights, barbells and move, throw, flip and drag something heavy for your training, use tyres, kettle bells, sandbags, sleds, prowlers and medicine balls," suggests Kevin Toonen, strength and conditioning coach for the Special Forces.
"Muck about and do something completely different."
This goes for cardio too, so we maximise oxygen levels in the blood and get all our large muscle groups firing.
You might add in some short, sharp sprints, add a jog to your walk or find a hill or set of stairs to race up.
Toonen suggests spending between two to four weeks shaking up your routine, having fun and getting into the great outdoors for a run, cycle or swim to "test your engine".
Any longer than one month and you're likely to lose the gains you've made during your training program. But, for a short period it allows us to see how our training translates to the "real" world and "unloads your body and unloads your mind".
This doesn't mean you can't inject some spice into your exercise routine mid-program.
"Try new things each week or at least fortnight," suggests strength and conditioning coach, Clint Hill. "Our bodies are made to move so try activities that you can have fun with take a surf lesson, learn to sing or go horse-riding."
Some of the most challenging novel workouts I've done recently have been the most fun, from dancing at a No Lights, No Lycra class, burning to the core at Barre Attack to turning it upside down at a handstand class and acrobalance class.
It's not just our bodies that benefit, Hill says.
"Challenging our central nervous system (CNS) with new activities stimulates hormones in our body to repair, renew and rebalance our endocrine system – which in simple terms 'balances' us out from a hectic, high-stress life," explains Hill, also an expert for Bodyscience's #FitJanuary campaign.
He adds that the more muscles we activate, the more we switch on our CNS. That said, it is possible to shake it up too much.
"To see improvements, you have to have some consistency," Hill advises. "It's making sure you change things up enough to keep your body guessing but do things consistently enough to keep your form right. I tell people if they're doing the same thing for longer than six to eight weeks, they need a big change."
This applies even to those who aren't training for a specific goal, but simply to maintain fitness. “Progress stops as soon as your body has adapted," explains Toonen, "It's running neutral, so you need to step it up."
Written by Sarah Berry. First appeared on Stuff.co.nz.
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