Consistency vs. variety

Rhea

Rhea

Cathlete
Cathe -

I have a general overall question. I know that every person responds differently to workouts. I also know that muscle confusion is supposed to be good. However, is there such thing as too much variety? What I mean is, I have tons of videos (I think the only series I'm missing of yours is the Slow and Heavy), I could do a different workout every day for three months or more and not do the same workout. So I tend to grab whatever I feel like doing for the day. I do keep track and make sure I give body parts rests.

I have noticed that I don't really make much progress, body fat percentage, muscle strength, etc. Would it be better to use a few workouts that work the same muscles, with the same types of exercises, for a couple of weeks, or a month; then switch for the muscle confusion?

Thanks for any input...I wish I was closer so I could go on the road trip, but No. Ca is clear across the continent, darn it.
 
Hi Rhea:)

Cathe, I would also love to know the answer to this question since I'm exactly in the same situation as Rhea is.
 
This is a great question. I hope Cathe answers this.

With everyone buying so many workouts, and so many new ones coming, there is little time to spend on just one or two workouts to see if they produce results.
 
Totally! and you should see my collection. I'd be embarrased to count them, but I have one bookshelf and 1/2 of DVDs....}(
 
While you're waiting for an answer from Cathe, I'll throw in my 2 cents (which you can spend any way you wish!).

I think that weight workouts vs. cardio workouts are best approached differently. Weight workouts can 'last' longer than cardio before your body adapts, because you can stave off total adaptation by increasing the weights you use. So sticking with the same basic type of weight workout (or even the same weight workout) for 4-6 weeks can be a good idea. (YMMV: the newer one is to exercise, the longer you can go, the more advanced, the quicker you adapt thus the sooner you should change things up...but the changees don't have to be huge: a different order of exercise, a different rep pattern, differences in rep speed/numbers of reps and sets/recovery between sets are all ways of changing it up).

As for cardio, I think our body adapts more quickly to it, and thus becomes more efficient at it more quickly (and you can't continue to make a cardio workout more intense as you can with a weight workout. Going from a 6" to an 8" step is one way of intensifying, but you can't keep adding risers and still stay safe). And 'more efficient" for the body also means "doing the least possible effort," which means burning fewer calories.

This is one reason (beyond reducing the risks of overuse injury and avoiding boredom) to cross train: so your body doesn't get too used to any one form of cardio (and if it does, if you back off from that type of cardio for a while, your body will 'forget' a bit of its adaptation, and it will again be challenging once you get back to it. At least that's what I've experienced when not doing step for a while, then getting back into it and finding a workout that was previously easy suddenly was more challenging).

Another component to fitness that is often underestimated is recovery. Without sufficient recovery, muscle won't grow, and your body can start to feel stressed and try to hang on to whatever fat it has.

You might want to post this question in "Open Discussion," where other Catheites and I can have a longer 'conversation' with you about it (and you can get more opinions).

HTH
 
Hi Kathryn,

Another component to fitness that is often underestimated is recovery. Without sufficient recovery, muscle won't grow, and your body can start to feel stressed and try to hang on to whatever fat it has.

I am doing the March rotation. Today is a rest day!
I had a run in with food this weekend:) I was thinking of not taking anymore rest days for this month(I have this week and next week left on the rotation)! Put I feel so guilty taking a rest day :)

Belinda
 
Belinda....

Don't ever feel guilty about a rest day. I'm right there with you, I'll feel guilty too sometimes...especially after a bad eating day. However, rest is very important and actually I have found that even an entire week of rest for the body can do good sometimes. A rest day doesn't always have to be complete "do nothing." My rest day last Sat ended up with gardening and 18 holes of golf. So it was an active rest day.

I've never though about the cardio conditioning and getting used to the same workout for cardio. I'm in pretty good cardio condition (resting HR of below 60 and HR will drop 10-30 beats within about 5-10 seconds of dropping to lower intensity) I have a hard enough time sustaining the HR up higher. It could be that I'm being a puss sometimes too. (have to admit it, I'm not good at all the jumping sometimes and modify a lot) I might need to concentrate on adding the jumps etc to get more out of the cardios.
 
My thoughts for what it is worth you can actually have to much variety that you will not see results. You do need consistency so that the muscles have time to respond to the workout you just put them through. You do need variety so that the muscles do not adapt to the workout. Changing once a month is ok, but every 2 months is more what I like to do.

I do have so many Cathe workouts that it is hard not to want as much variety as I can get, but I do force myself to do the same rotation for an entire month.

When her new workouts came out I did them for 2 months straight, as she posted on the rotation forum and wow did I see the best results I have ever seen, not just because of the new workouts, but because of the consistency.

I read several health magazines such as Fitness, Shape, and Women's Health just to name a few, and it seems they have all answered this questions at one time or another. Although we do need variety in our workouts, to much of it can cancel out all the hard work we pour into our hour. There needs to be a balance of consistency and variety. Staying on the same pattern of workouts for a month is a great way to really see some great results.

However with that said... if you look at April's rotation by Cathe she has done that, one week it Gym Style weight lifting the other week is Pyramid style and then back to gym... so the consistency is there, but your body might respond better to sticking with the same workout the entire month instead of switch back and forth from gym style to pyramid training.
 
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