Add Variety to Your Workouts
When we plan workouts for our clients, two of the most important factors are safety and effectiveness of the exercises. We also add variety to the workouts to “shock” our clients’ bodies.
The human body is an amazing machine that is designed to adapt to any environment or situation that it finds itself in. When you travel to a place like Denver in the USA or Cusco in Peru, it will only take your body a day or two to adapt to the lack of oxygen at high altitude.
The principle of adaptation also applies to exercising, where your body gets used to a particular exercise or training program through repeated exposure. This explains why you get muscle soreness after starting a new routine, but after doing the same exercise for a few weeks at the same intensity, you don’t really experience any muscle soreness.
In simple terms, if you lifting heavy things regularly, your body adapts to become stronger. If you run or swim or cycle regularly, your body adapts to become more efficient at those activities. Whatever you do on a regular basis, your body adapts and it will get easier and easier to do and you get less and less benefit from that exercise. This is when your workouts hit a plateau.
Therefore, you should challenge or shock your body by adding variety to your workouts. For example, a simple push-up can be done on the ground, with your feet on a bench or Swissball, hands on uneven levels (one hand on a block and one hand on the ground), hands on the Swissball or using suspension training (TRX). You can also vary your workouts by playing around with the tempo of the exercise, the number of repetitions you do an exercise, use different equipment, supersets or changing the angles of your body or limbs.
The above are just a few ways you can shock your body when you workout. Contact us if you need any help with structuring your routines to minimise plateauing out.
