Including some variety in your workout routine is a one of the cornerstones of making progress toward your goal. But you need to know how to use it wisely. Intelligently pairing variety with repetition according to your goal is what will get you results. Find the right balance with the FizzUp trainer.
Losing the motivation to work out isn’t hard. Always doing the same exercises with the same protocol can get pretty boring after a while and sticking to exercise over the long term will get difficult if it stops being fun. When you use the same routine over and over, you’ll eventually start to see exercise as a chore, which is a major hurdle if your goal is to work out regularly.
That’s why adding something new every now and then will keep you active and satisfied with your routine so that you never throw in the towel.
For experienced fitness fans, the main reason they shake up their workout is to keep fatigue and overuse injuries at bay. Doing the same exercises workout after workout without giving yourself enough time to rest can lead to injury. Intelligently shaking up your workout boosts your ability to make progress by improving your weaknesses and your more “minor” athletic skills depending on your goal (improving muscle strength or flexibility for runners, endurance for weight lifters, etc.).
This explains why runners do cycling or swimming for part of their season to compensate for repetitive movement and most athletes practice yoga and stretching. You can see how critical it is to have at least some variety in your workout routine because balancing out the physical stress you put on different parts of your body is an important factor for staying in good health and injury free.
Switching up your routine doesn’t always mean you have to completely change the exercises you do. You can also turn up the variety by adjusting the intensity and length of your workout or exercises.
Speed, strength, balance, agility and endurance are all areas of exercise that improve your overall physical fitness. Even if you’re tempted to stick to what you know and like, it’s better not to focus on one single element.
Variety is the spice of your workout program, but it shouldn’t be the main ingredient. Although variety breaks up the monotony and can do wonders to spark your motivation, the ultimate reason for any routine is progressive overload, which is what makes reaching your fitness goal possible.
To use the power of variety to your advantage, it needs to be worked into your program using clear options that you can take on or adapt to your needs and ability.
Another thing about variety is that it lacks any training effect. How do you know if you’re improving over time if you don’t continue to do the same exercise or activity? Your body won’t adapt, which means that you won’t know how it’s evolving.
This is why anticipating the progress you’ll make with a few exercise works so well: it gives your body a starting point from which it needs to adapt through progressive overload. Having points of reference will guide you to your goal. You can then switch up these points of references to make progress.
Results don’t just come out of thin air. Too much variety doesn’t give your body enough time to adapt. If you’re working out with a rather broad goal in mind or are trying to improve a certain athletic skill, it’s easy to have too much variety in your routine if you’re using every approach that exists, which will only hold back your progress.
For instance, if you have a specific goal like doing 10 pull-ups in a single set, then practicing pull-ups and strengthening your back and arms has to be your main focus. In this case, doing a variety of leg and cardio exercises won’t do much to help you do pull-ups. But if your goal is more general, you can do whatever kind of workout you want as long as you feel that you’re making progress toward your goal.
Variety has its drawbacks, but if you just want to be fit, you can definitely use variety to your advantage to turn exercise into a fun habit. To make progress, you need to get creative, but wisely.
FizzUp workouts are big on variety when variety is right for your routine. Learning and using a variety of exercises strengthens the connections between your neurons and muscles and protects you against overuse injury.
Variety also keeps you exercising regularly thanks to workouts that are always fun, especially if you like change. But remember, the less consistent your workouts are, the harder measuring your progress will be. Your body needs a solid starting point and consistency in your workout routine to continuously develop.
To push your body’s limits with maximum fun and variety, your FizzUp program includes optional blocks of exercises* you can opt to do during your workout and challenges* under your Single Workouts.
The best workout program includes both variety AND progressive overload. You’ll get results when you make the decisions for your specific fitness goal.
*FizzUp Premium feature
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