When was the last time you changed your workout routine?
You are a creature of habit. You go to the gym on Mondays and Wednesdays after work and Saturday mornings (or Sunday if you had a big Friday night). You warm up on the bike for 5 mins (I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt, you probably just swing your arms around in the air a few times and count that as the warm up don’t you?) Then you do some bench press, some shoulder press, a few chin-ups if you’re feeling energetic, glance at the squat rack, decide you don’t have time then finish off with a few quick curls. Perhaps I’m being a little harsh, you might have a plan that you stick to and you might work different muscles on different days, but I’m here to tell you that people mostly do the same thing when they come to the gym.
Gym goers fall into four categories:
Weights guys – there are a few weights gals too, but not as many. These are the guys that are training 5 times a week and they only do weights. They do not set foot on a treadmill they don’t even know that Hiscoes has a whole other floor upstairs where people exercise – they’ve never been there!
Weights and cardio – this is a lot of people. They have a routine, they either do twenty minutes of weights and then twenty minutes of cardio in the same session, or they do weights on one day and cardio the next. They do this because that’s a what a trainer has told them to do. They’ve kept doing it – but when was the last time they checked in to see if it was time to change things?
Classes only – these people have a special spot in the aerobics room and woe betide anyone who accidentally takes it! It’s the spin guy whose eyes become slits when you go near ‘his’ bike or the person who positions themselves exactly in front of the third mirror from the left. Monday is Spin night, Tuesday Step, Wednesday Pilates and Thursday Pump. They don’t use the change-rooms or anything else on the first floor.
Exercise Enthusiasts! – we’ve got a few of these at Hiscoes, they take advantage of the lot. They play squash, they lift weights twice a week and lift some really heavy weights on Saturday mornings. They do boxing on a Thursday and finish their week off with yoga on a Sunday so they’re even getting that whole mind/body thing going… Trust me, they do exist …and I think they are doing something right.
The benefits of mixing up your workouts
When you do the same activity all the time, your body gets used it and becomes very efficient at it which means that eventually you will burn fewer calories even when you’re doing the same amount of exercise. If you make your body work harder by challenging it to a new activity – you’ll burn more calories! Changing things up also means you’re less likely to suffer from overuse injuries and doing a little bit of everything means that you won’t bulk up in certain areas, but not in others. Remember, friends don’t let friends skip leg day. Plus it simply makes working out a bit more fun if you don’t do the same thing every time.
It’s not just physical, there are mental benefits to spicing up your workout regimen too!
Exercise is essential for keeping your brain sharp and helping to prevent memory loss. Learning new skills also helps keep your neurons firing better. When it comes to brain health – the key is to choose activities that keep you engaged, like a class like Retrosweat, or boxing or even squash. Hiscoes has squash coaching for beginners at various times of the year and it’s FREE for members. RETROSWEAT is on Thursday nights and is great a laugh even if you have little coordination skills. We are also running a beginners technical boxing session on Saturday mornings. It’s FREE to update your program, so see one of our trainers and have a chat about how you could shake things a up a bit. Or better still – check out our new ‘team training‘ starts on August 3 and the workouts change every week!
