-->Monday Mix Up!
It’s Monday here in Fitness land and we fitness professionals are watching you guys walk, ho hum, through our doors ready for the same old, same old. Time to spice it up … here are some ideas for switching up your workout.
1. Change your cardio. If you normally run, do a powerwalk instead. If you’re an elliptical queen check out a Spin bike for a few minutes. Do NOT do the same old cardio. By switching it you’ll be engaging different muscle groups and challenging the body more. Your body will respond with more sweat & more calories burned.
2. Change your sets. If you do 3 sets of 10 for weight training, try a reverse pyramid. Do one set of 15 reps, one set of 10 reps, and the last set until failure. Also if you haven’t changed your weights in a while increase them by about 10%. This will make up your muscles and you’ll see increased tone right away.
3. Slow down! Whatever type of resistance training your doing, free weights, machines, ab crunches, take twice as long as you normally do for each rep. The slower you go the more muscle fibers have a chance to fire. This results in toned muscles much more quickly. You’ll see results fast.
4. Change your ab routine. If you’ve been doing the same ab routine since you’re college athletic days it’s time to switch it up. Find a routine On Demand through your local cable company or sneak a peek at what a trainer is doing with a client at the gym. While you’re at it don’t poof! If you poof up your “six pack” muscle you aren’t engaging your core properly, if your “six pack” lies flat with the rest of your stomach then you’re doing it right. As I say to my clients, train with a poof get a poof, train with a scoop, get a scoop!
Hope this helps to wake up your routine, small changes can have a big positive impact on your body. Enjoy.
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For now I alternate days between running and cycling. On those same days I mix in some yoga and different strength exercises. This level of variation seems to be working for me right now.
Nice tips, i will mix it up from now on. I have been doing the fast walk, initially i used to mix it up nicely, like a little walk then slow jogging and then running for some distance and then slow walk again. But lately, it has been reduced to a fast walk mainly. About the other points, yes i like to change weights and more importantly, change the sets of exercise.
Those are really great tips Lisa. Isn’t it fun how many gazillions of variations we can do? It is ENDLESS! Have a great week!
Thanks Kris, you too! :-)
Another fabulous post!
I completely agree with everything you said, especially the part about changing up your cardio routines. I like to match my cardio to the muscle group that I’m working out that day. For instance cardio on a leg day = Stairmaster, while cardio on an arm day = elliptical or row machine. Remember that every day your workout should make you feel like you did your first week at a new job. Variety helps to keep you a little off balance, but also excited, motivated, and focused. Best wishes!
ha! Matt I did that over the weekend, a killer Pilates leg workout with the Stair stepper machine, I was shaky afterwards. :-)