Fitness & Training

Why different workouts in your weekly routine are good for you

January 25, 2022by Fabien

Should I do the same exercises everyday? This is a question that gets asked time and time again. The answer is simply, no! Varying your workouts each day and week, allows your different muscle groups to recover and repair. Changing up your workout routine also helps fight boredom that might arise from repeating the same thing. Stop doing the same exercises over (and over and over). Learn why doing different workouts will help you become a fitter, more well-rounded athlete. Here is why different workouts in your weekly routine are good for you.

Fitness Benefits of Doing Different Workouts

1. You’ll target more muscles.

2. You move in more planes of motion.

3. Helps you get to know your body better.

4. You get stronger, powerful, and more flexible.

Most importantly, tune into what your body is telling you it needs. If you have a HIIT session on the calendar, but you’re feeling wiped, swap in a yoga session or a long walk.

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Alternating workouts

Alternating Workouts Allows You to Rest and Recover

Recovering and allowing your body to rest is incredibly important. If a person were to lift weights everyday, your muscles wouldn’t have the time that they need to repair and recover. Hence, you wouldn’t see the results that you have been doing all this hard work for. If you want to workout everyday, that is totally fine! But make sure to alternate exercises and target different areas of the body. Doing so will give your muscles, joints and ligaments a day in-between to rest. This will also reduce your risk of injury.
Alternating workouts

Avoiding a Plateau

A fitness plateau is a term used when the progress one has been making in their fitness journey has halted or stalled. Maybe you noticed that recently you haven’t been meeting your goals, despite eating healthy and vigorously training. A plateau can be very frustrating, but don’t worry, it’s only temporary. Plateaus are signs that you have progressed so much, that it’s time to try something new. However, if you would like to avoid a plateau, the best thing to do is change up your workouts. Each week, you can still be focusing on similar muscle groups, however doing different workouts. These will help train the smaller muscles that aren’t trained as much. You will then get a better overall body workout and continue to see results. As you progress, training longer, harder, with more reps, etc can also help you push yourself, instead of hitting a halt.

False Beliefs

Many people think that weight training is only for gaining muscle and not for losing fat. This idea is wrong. By building muscle mass, weight training increases the basic metabolism and thus helps to lose fat over time. Since muscle is heavier than fat, you can put a little weight on the scale, but at the same time you can slim down your figure and tone your body.

Endurance sports increase the metabolism during exercise and only a few hours afterwards. The effects of jogging, for example, last up to 24 hours after the activity. 

In comparison, a strength training session uses fewer calories, but its effect on the metabolism is longer lasting. As muscle mass increases over the course of the days and the muscle consumes energy throughout its reconstruction. The basal metabolic rate will then increase. Therefore, the body expends more energy at rest. Long term, more fat is burned.

Alternating workouts

How to stretch correctly

1. Do not stretch if you are not warmed up. Cold muscles can tear easily.

2. Don’t stretch a muscle that is freshly injured, stiff or too stiff. Instead, put off stretching until the next day.

3. Don’t stretch immediately after your cardio workout, especially after a competition. Wait at least 15-20 minutes. Do it, for example, after a shower.

4. Take your shoes off for good support.

5. To relax your muscles, you need to release tension. Choose a quiet, relaxing place.

6. Do not stretch in a cold atmosphere.

Alternating workouts

Areas in La Jolla that are great for exercising or stretching with a beautiful view

 

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