Change Up Your Workout Schedule With These 4 Tips

What’s your weekly workout schedule like?

For me personally, I like to get a good balance of strength training and cardio thrown in throughout the week.  It keeps my heart healthy, challenges my muscles, relieves stress and is just plain fun!

Yes, that’s right I said it.  Exercise is fun!  I didn’t always think that way, but what makes it so much fun is the variety.  Variety is the spice of exercise life.  Okay, you agree with variety, yes?  Great!  Now do you implement variety?

There are 4 concepts of fitness that you can easily change for any routine to make it different.  I highly encourage you to change these up every once in a while because change is good for your body.

Duration
Intensity
Frequency
Mode

Now you know them, how do you make the change?

Duration – How long you exercise for

I like to use examples.  Say you exercise 4 days a week for 45 minutes each of those days.  How do you think your body would react if you only exercised for 30 minutes one day but then 60 minutes on a different day that week?  You’d still be working out the same total minutes for the week, but it would be a bit different.  I’m sure your body would notice those extra 15 minutes on that one longer day.

You can easily add on or remove time from your workout session, depending on your fitness goals.

Intensity – Effort you put into your workout

Intensity varies so much from person to person.  One person’s easy can be intense for another, so this is very individualized per person.  To vary intensity on cardio equipment you can either increase speed or resistance. 

With weight training intensity is the key.  Your muscle works differently when you lift 5, 10 or 15 pounds.  The heavier the weight, the more challenging it will be and less reps will be done.

When I lift more intensely I really try to think and focus on the muscle I’m working on.  When you think about the area you’re working, you focus and contract it.  You’ll naturally get more out of the muscle when your mind is in your workout too.

Frequency – How often you exercise

This one is a pretty easy one to change if you commit to it.  If you already workout 4 days a week and add 1 more, that changes it up right there.  The energy sources your body usually pulls from for those original 4 days of exercise will change a bit if you add another day. 

It’s the same with reducing the days you work out too.  If you reduce by 1 day, you’re allowing your body more time to recover from the other days of exercise.  Recovery can help you have more energy to put into your next workout, which then could end up being more intense too.

Mode – Type of exercise

Mode is what keeps exercise fun for me.  I love variety and by changing up the mode you’re giving your body and mind variety.  If you like to run but it’s plateauing out for you, give something else a try.  How about hiking, biking, swimming or rowing for cardio?  All burn calories, will get your heart pumping and are a great workout.

If you’re getting tired of plain old weight lifting, join a class.  Working out with others is super motivating.  You can also try yoga, pilates, rock climbing, crossfit or just switch up your workout routine.  Find a new fun workout to try.  Just a little bit of variety can do a lot for your workout routine.

Are you getting excited to workout now?  I sure am!

Want to know what’s been different with my workout routine lately?  I’ve added Pump It (group strength training class) and cycle classes.  Both are very intense classes and so much fun!

Try something new.  Maybe you’ll even learn to love it.

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