The Importance of Mixing It Up

An interesting idea with regards to training is that of mixing your workout up. People get together a set of exercises that make up their regular workout, and they start to see the benefits. When I first started out I had my set routines that I would do every workout. Now, this is not the worst thing in the world. However, there are some issues that can arise through completing the same routines.

The first issue is the idea of the workout becoming ineffective. If we run at the same speed on the treadmill everyday for 20 minutes, our body will eventually hit an area of stability, where the body has become accustomed to the workout so it has a lessened affect.

Another issue that can arise is that muscles can not get enough time to recover. If we pound our muscles everyday then they have no chance to heal between workouts, and the chances of injury increase. Ensure that we complete low intensity workouts in between highly intense workouts and this should not be a problem.

One final issue that can arise is boredom. If we do the same workout everyday, there is a good chance we will get bored of it. This can lead to us not completing the workout fully or to the best of our ability and can sometimes lead to skipping workouts altogether!

There are many ideas to ensure that our workout does not become stale. First of all, we can be more flexible with our workouts. If we like to workout on an evening, try throwing in an early workout to change it up a bit. In terms of weight lifting, we can change from weight machines to using free-weights. There are many other ways of changing up our workouts so be creative and keep the workouts working!

Four Key Rules for a Great Workout

This blog entry will discuss four key ideas that will make for a great workout. These are simple tips that will ensure that we make the most of our workout.

1. The first rule is to make sure you breathe. I know this seems fairly obvious, but I have seen it many times before where people are holding their breath while doing reps. It is easy to forget. A simple way to remember is to ensure that on the harder part of the exercise, the pulling up of a pull up for example, we breathe out and on the easier part we breathe in. The main thing is to make sure that you are breathing!

2. Your aim is to fail! This may seem silly. Ok, this is not exactly what the goal is. The idea of this rule is to push ourselves to the limit of our strength. Always be safe, however, we don’t want injuries.

3. Take things slow (or fast). With cardio exercise we should perform as fast as we can! However, with other exercises it is often best to perform slowly. Performing exercises at a slower rate will help to work the muscle more and therefore we can get stronger.

4. Finally, one of the most important things with exercise – FORM. Good form is arguably the most essential thing with getting the most from a workout. Through correct form we reduce the risk of injury and gain more from specific exercises. We will see the best results from performing exercises correctly.

Hope these tips help!