Variety Is The Spice Of Exercise
Variety isn’t just the spice of life, variety is also important when it comes to exercise. This idea can be difficult for some because most human beings are creatures of habit. Most of us seek out familiarity and comfort, so sometimes it’s hard to bust “out of the box”. And sometimes, we don’t know exactly how to mix it up and do different things in order to get out of that “box”.
Of course, when it comes to being active and exercising, doing anything is good. Doing anything with intensity is even better. But regularly doing different things with intensity is the best option yet. This is especially true when talking about weight training.
For example, our muscles are made up of thousands of long cable-like fibers that run the entire length of the muscle from end to end. All of these fibers run parallel together to make up the dense, striated muscle appearance that most of us are familiar with. During each exercise, not every muscle fiber that comprises that muscle is utilized to start and finish that movement. It only uses the muscle fibers that the central nervous system deems necessary to get the job done. So in order to train more muscle fiber, it is important to hit that muscle from different angles, frequencies, speeds, and intensities. These different variations of movement will help use the most amount of muscle fiber possible, helping to spark growth.
This is important for several reasons. The more muscle fiber used the stronger and more toned that muscle will get. Neglecting to work a muscle in different ways will not work the muscle to its optimum potential. And if you train the same muscles in the same way each time, it will inevitably get stale and progress will slow or even halt. It is also important because worked muscles will burn calories as its repairing and recovering, increasing your metabolic rate. This will allow you to burn more calories while at rest, an obviously great thing if your goal is to lose body fat.
So add variety to your workouts and hit as many muscle fibers as possible! Try a BOSU push-up instead of a standard push-up. Try a medicine ball chop instead of a crunch. Try Burpees instead of the Elliptical machine. Try the inverted row on the smith machine instead of a standard seated row. Or try the incline biceps curl instead of the standard seated or standing curl. All of these variations on the old standards will assist in avoiding boredom, staleness and lack of progress that doing the same ol’, same ol’ can bring about.
About this LFF Blogger — Brian LaFrazia is a Certified Personal Trainer and Les Mills RPM Instructor at the Tampa Palms LFF. Brian’s RPM classes run Monday and Wednesday nights at 6:30 p.m. and he can be reached for any questions regarding Personal Training at blafrazia@lff.com.
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