A big part of staying healthy is keeping consistent with your exercise routine. If you can keep things interesting and keep your mind fresh with new routines, you’re well on your way to sticking to your plan. What follows are my three quick, easy techniques to change it up.
- Break up your cardiovascular routine into bite-sized chunks. All too often people get stuck in a rut of just chugging thru 30-40 minutes of their aerobic exercise, despite the boredom of plodding along for what can seem like an eternity. My fix – break it up! Try shortening up the duration and aim for no more than 5 minute bouts of aerobic exercise separated by one or two of your usual strength exercises. The key is to keep moving from one exercise to another. Research tells us that shorter bouts of exercise are equally as effective at improving cardiovascular stamina as compared to one long, continuous bout. You’ll still accumulate up to 30 minutes of aerobic exercise, but in smaller, more manageable time chunks. Give it a shot.
- Shorten your routine and intensify it. There’s a lot of recent research on the effectiveness of shorter, more intense exercise as a means to increasing your fitness. We used to think that in order to be effective you really needed at least 30 minutes of continuous aerobic exercise. The reality is that with shorter bursts (as little as 30 seconds at a time) of more intense exercise coupled with a minute or two of lower intensity exercise (to recover) you can improve your stamina. So try this: Next time you’re on the treadmill or bike or elliptical, increase the intensity such that after 1 minute you are just beginning to breath vigorously, then move slowly for 2 minutes to recover. Repeat this 4-6 times. Your body will thank you for the change in effort. This day’s workout will definitely be a little shorter but more intense. If you have any questions as to how intensely you should push yourself, just ask – we can help set your levels.
- Reduce your weight on your strength machines and increase your repetitions- We all get stuck lifting the same amount of weight for the same ‘magic number’ of 10-15 repetitions. Next time you do your strengthening exercises try this for a little test: Reduce your weight by about 15-20% and complete as many repetitions as you possibly can; perhaps 20 or 30 or 40 reps. This challenges your muscles differently and tends to help build muscular endurance rather than shear strength. The key is to make those muscle burn a little. It’s a new kind of challenge, so don’t be surprised if you get a touch of muscle soreness within the 48 hours following. Embrace it as it’s your body’s way of telling you it’s been challenged in a unique way!
There you have it. By taking the same old routine and throwing in these simple little tweaks, you’ve effectively added 2 or 3 more workouts to your weekly repertoire! As always if you have any questions or would like to change up your routine, just ask our staff for some help!
Cheers and Happy Holidays!