Keep it Fresh

I'm going to be repeating myself quite a bit on this site but repetition is how we learn.

Two very common questions that I get from folks are, "How do I keep from getting bored when I work out?" and "I only get results when I first start to work out and then I just seem to keep maintaining the same weight/strength/size." I know the second one isn't actually a question, just bare with me. These two questions can be reduced to boredom and plateauing.

Boredom doesn't need any explanation, but plateauing might so here goes. Plateauing is when a person ceases to experience positive results from their workouts. They started walking with their girlfriend during their lunch break and saw some results at first but then those results have stopped. They were doing a fun workout routine and were getting stronger each week, but now have ceased to get stronger. They were improving their best time on a distance run or sprint and now just don't seem to be able to get any faster.

Variation is the answer to the boredom and plateauing problem. The human body is an organism. It thrives on variety. A misconception that people have is what I call the, "Gas Tank Model," of the body. They believe that just as putting "X" amount of gas into the gas tank will get you so far, so too doing "Y" amount of exercise will return the same results each time. Your body is an organism not a machine. Machines yield the same results each time you input the same amount of fuel. Organisms ADAPT.

The human body will adapt. No matter how out of shape you are, no matter how old you are the human body will condition itself to stimulus. In fact, to make matters worse there is a kind of law of diminishing returns when it comes to stimulus and the body. That's why technically, as a trainer, I don't like to say or hear about maintaining condition. It is misleading. People get the idea that once a certain goal is reached all that one needs to do is continually repeat the same exercises that they did at the point they reached their goal. NOT TRUE NOT TRUE NOT TRUE. Variations still have to be part of the workout to maintain the achieved result. Otherwise the body will eventually find a more efficient way of achieving the goal. More efficient equals fewer calories burned which equals either lower, or no results, or even a return to original conditioning!!! Yikes. That is exactly not what we want, right?

So add some variation to what ever your doing. If you walk 2 miles during your lunch break each day, try to do it in shorter time. Or go further in the same amount of time. Or add some weights to your back pack. If you've only been lifting light to tone and firm up, spend a week doing some strength training. Don't worry, you won't get huge doing that for just a week. In fact, the surprise is that you might see yourself getting the results you want again because you're giving your body what it wants. Variety. Do you always just do cardio? How about doing some resistance training for a change? Are you a meathead, like me? why not try some jump rope or sprint training to get the conditioning where it belongs.

I hope you all get the point. I'll be giving you more tips as we go, but please please please, STOP DOING THE SAME STUPID THING AND EXPECTING DIFFERENT RESULTS. Until next time, love ya all and here's some stuff that you might need for some variety.