Cathe and the educated: question about "changing it up"

[futurefitnessdyanmo]

Hi Cathe and others,

You hear all the time that one of the most important factors in achieving the results you want is to change things up all the time to shock your body. My question is, what constitutes changing it up? I know that throwing in forms of cardio you don't do as often (i.e. running if you typically do videos) counts, but is it also effective to stick with certain videos for a few weeks and then throw in new ones?

I know the best way to tell is to try it and see whether or not your body responds, but before I commit the time unnecessarily, I wanted to know your thoughts on whether you can achieve the necessary change within fitness videos, or even within modalities, like step.

 

[kathryn]

RE: Cathe and the educated: question about

For cardio, I think it's important to vary the types of cardio you do. From what I've read, and from my own experience, I think that your body adapts to the same type of cardio rather quickly, and if you do only one kind, like step for example, your body will become more efficient at it and burn fewer calories.

For resistance training, I think it's easier to vary a particular workout by increasing weights, but the body still benefits from a change in routine. This can be a change in the order of exercises, a change in the number of reps, a change between high-rep/light weight workouts and low-rep/heavy weight workouts, a change of equipment (barbells vs. dumbbells vs. bands vs. cable equipment), a change in types of resistance training (ie: function fitness and body weight work vs more traditional gym-style workouts), a change in the length of workouts. Also very important, IMO, is to include recovery weeks in your rotations during which you do more stretching, yoga, and functional/core work (at least that's what I do during my recovery weeks).

It's usually advised to change weight programs after 4-6 weeks (YMMV). Anytime you no longer feel challenged, or don't see any improvement, it's time to change. Ideally, you can figure out how long it takes your body to reach a plateau where gains stop, and to switch your routine then. (Again, recovery weeks are very important to avoid hitting plateaus).

This change doesn't require any additional time commitment, just variety.

If you want to discuss this more, come on over to the "open discussion" or "video questions" forum, where Catheites (ie: the "educated crowd" )can give you some more opinions.