5 Fitness Changes You Can Make Right Now
Hey hey! How are ya? YAY that it’s almost the weekend. We’ve just been chilling over here, and I’m really looking forward to spending the day with the girls and subbing Zumba. “Despacito” continues to be my favorite Zumba song, even though my world was shattered a bit when Justin claimed he didn’t even know the words. Fail.
Fitness Changes
For today, let’s talk about fitness! More specifically: your fitness routine/schedule. I have to admit that I’ve been a little bit lax with my own training and fitness over the past few weeks. My mind has been elsewhere, and even though I use fitness for the awesome endorphins and truly enjoy it, I found myself naturally scaling back a little. I know that I’ll feel rejuvenated soon, and am just taking a cue from my body to do what it’s craving. (Don’t worry, I’m not pregnant. #twoandthrough)
If you find yourself feeling blah or uninspired with fitness, here are 5 ways you can add pizazz to your workouts, and increase their effectiveness. <— so you get more out of the time you spend working out
1. Assess your muscle training split. When I talk to personal training clients to find out what the’ve been doing, it never surprises me to hear that they strength train the same muscles every single day. They’ll take HIIT, BODYPUMP, CrossFit and strength circuit classes consecutive days in a row. While strength training is AMAZING, and one of the best ways to protect your bones and build lean muscle, it’s important to be strategic in how you strength train. Remember that results occur during rest, not work. If you’re working the same muscles to fatigue day after day, it causes a continue cycle of muscle breakdown without giving the tissues necessary time to recover and rebuild. Alternate strength training days, or if you like classes or workouts that challenge your entire body, sandwich those workouts with rest days or pure cardio days to give your muscles a break. If you need help setting up a strength training split, check out this post.
2. Add in smart interval training. Interval training is a bomb way to burn fat, protect your heart health, and you can become stronger, fitter, and faster. Add in some Tabata intervals to your strength work, or HIIT. Just like I mentioned in #1, don’t do the same thing on consecutive days. It’s important to alternate cardio intensities so you’re not working balls to the wall every.single.day.
3. Stop doing “traditional” core workouts. Whenever someone gets on the floor and does 100+ crunches or sit-ups, a fairy dies. These exercises can create stress and pressure on your spine, negatively affecting the low back. (Interesting post on why the military may be phasing out sit-ups for PT tests here.) Also, they’re the opposite of functional. I don’t think I do a crunch movement in real life, ever.
Focus on functional core work like planks, deadlifts, and squats!
4. Pay attention to breathing and form. It’s easy to get in the workout zone (especially with a killer playlist) and find that you’ve been holding your breath for the entire set of reps. Focus on engaging your core (pull the belly button in and drop your ribs), and exhaling on the exertion (<— hardest part) of each movement.
5. Try a new class, or change your scenery. Change begets change. If you’re feeling stuck or blah in your routine, try something totally new. Take your run outside instead of the treadmill. Take a new class. Try something you think you may NOT like, and you may surprise yourself. If you do these things, and you’re still feeling blah, maybe it’s a signal that you’re overtraining and need a break. Take the break and come back even stronger. Our bodies are intelligent machines and will usually tell us what they want.. it’s just up to us to listen.
Anyone else feeling a little blah on the fitness front lately? What’s something you do or have done to make your workouts more awesome/exciting?
xoxo
Gina
Photos: Lindsay Colson
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I always go to the gym with a plan written on a piece of paper, if not that, I use Aaptiv, it’s like a fun fitness coach in your ear, paired with great music.
Love how you share he importance of recovery. The PT test really is not functional. Was the Pilot apart of the bike PT days? D barely messed that.
I’ve definitely been feeling blah when it comes to fitness. I’ll probably try option #5 and look for a local spin studio! 🙂
Changing the scenery is one of the best ways for my to spruce things up! Simply driving to another park to run or trying out a new studio always gets me back in the workout mindset. Great tips, as always!
Awesome point on acessing your lifting routine. i work out very early, so I default to the exercisea I know best. Need to switch it up and plan better!
I found an online dance fitness class shinedancefitness.com that adds new dance sets 2x week with an archive to choose from as well. Fun dances and not too difficult for beginner. Just watching the video gets me to want to get up and move too. A great cardio workout.
i’ll check that out- thank you!
When I’m feeling blah I get on a workout challenge or plan! Having something to stick to and write in my planners (type A over here…) is exciting for me!
These are good tips/reminders. Taking a new class, or revisiting old exercise favorites I have not done in a while, always helps me to get over the blahs.
My 76-yo Dad is a retired Marine. Two years ago he herniated a disc in his lower back doing…sit-ups! He’s been doing hundreds of crunches a day for as long as I’ve known him (throughout the day) and they finally did him in. His doctor told him that crunches are bad, bad, bad!!! I’m glad the military is finally looking into these things. When I was in high school I remember the Marine Corps finally stopped making the troops run in combat boots (ouch, right???). Things are changing – slowly but surely!!
ahhh so sorry to hear about that. i’m so glad they’re starting to make some changes. when i see a PT test i try to shield my eyes
Definitely feeling blah and uninspired lately! I severely sprained my ankle in 2014 (it will never be the same, but it took 6-8 months to really heal) and I feel like my workouts just kind of went downhill and never came back. I was starting to get into a groove again recently, and the injury resurfaced itself. Feels like I can’t win!
Any suggestions for changes you can make when you’re held back by an injury? Everyone keeps telling me swimming, but my gym doesn’t have a pool :/
ugh so sorry to hear about that! have you tried pilates? that might be a great option
Fitness ruts are real! I just wrote about shaking your routine – if you always workout in the morning, try an evening session. Same idea as trying a new class. And really appreciate your point on strategic interval training – most of my go-to at-home workouts are tough HIIT routines…so if it’s a week where I’m having to workout at home a lot, I have to be careful not to overtrain.
same! i feel like it’s more challenging to get in low-moderate workouts at home. for those cases i like to do more barre or yoga to switch it up
I love this post! Such great ideas and I think it’s also important to not beat yourself up about it, everybody gets in a rut at some point or another. It’s okay and you’ll get through it!! Usually trying out a brand new type of workout helps me!
Thank you so much for this post! I find that I go either all in or nothing at all. I need to work on finding the balance and not beating myself up if I take a day or two off. You helped me realize it by saying muscles are made from rest not work. Jessica | http://www.roomforgelato.com
yes! so important to listen to what your body is craving <3
I agree about traditional core routines, they really do bugger up your back so i have been incorporating loads of new moves recently x
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