Tweak Your Strength Routine
By Kelli Calabrese MS, CSCS, ACE
If you're like most people, you stick to the same exercise routine week in and week out. Before you know it, years have gone by and you're still doing the exact same motions and wondering why your body has not changed.
The key to keeping your body progressing in the right direction is CHANGE. The body quickly adapts to what you impose on it and unless you switch things up you can expect to stay on a plateau.
Try any one of the following in your strength workouts to crank up your results.
Slow down -- Super slow training is an advanced technique that is challenging to perform. It requires a 6 second lifting phase and a 10 second lowering phase. There is no momentum involved so your muscles are doing all the work. You may use up to 20 percent less weight than you normally do.
Add an exercise -- Add two extra exercises for two of your trouble spots (ie. abs and triceps). Continue to work your entire body, but focus a little more on your stubborn areas to get an edge.
Turn up the intensity -- If you have been stopping just short of momentary muscular failure, you are cheating yourself. Those last few reps are the hardest, but the most important. Use visualization to crank out another rep or two. You will notice improvements in your strength and lean muscle before long.
Increase the resistance -- By adding weight you are making the muscle work harder. High intensity training is very effective and efficient because when you train harder, you do not have to train longer. If it’s been a while since you’ve increased the weights, it’s time.
Change your mode -- If you have been using free weights, give machines a try. If you have been using your body weight, try some fitness tubing. Dumbbells, barbells, machines, fitness tubing and body weight exercises all have advantages and disadvantages. Using a combination of the four will give you the most advantages.
Try a circuit -- Combine cardio with strength for variety. You will keep your heart rate up and keep the fat burning stoked. For example, you can warm up on a bike then perform your chest exercises. Proceed to complete five minutes on the Stairmaster then begin your triceps exercises. Engage in five minutes on the treadmill and then complete your abdominal routine finishing up with five minutes on the rower. In an hour's time, you will have trained three body parts and completed 20 minutes of cardio to boot.
Mix it up -- Change the sequence of your exercises. If you typically train back then chest, reverse it. You should always work the larger muscle groups before the smaller ones, but you can switch the order of the larger muscle and smaller muscle groups. You may be pleasantly surprised at how much stronger a muscle group will get when you exercise it before it is pre-fatigued by another exercise.
Rotate -- Replace some or all of the exercises in your routine. For each exercise, look at the muscle groups being utilized and replace it with an exercise that targets the same groups. For example, if you always use the rope to do a press down for your triceps, try a single arm overhead dumbbell extension.
One limb at a time -- If you typically work your body bilaterally (both arms or legs at the same time) try some single limb exercises. You may be surprised at imbalances between your right and left sides. You may be favoring one side without realizing it. For example when working your legs try each of the following using one leg; leg press, leg extension, leg curl and leg calf raise.
Get your zzz’s -- Vow to go to bed one hour earlier each night for a week. You will see the benefits in your strength training workouts. A rested body is a stronger body.
Get a partner -- Training with a buddy will be just the thing to kick your ego up a notch and make you want to work a little harder. Choose someone who is at or a little above your strength abilities and push each other to the limits.
The human body is an amazing piece of machinery, capable of adapting to just about any circumstance or stimulus. By introducing new elements to your workout you'll likely find yourself off the plateau and back on the road to progress in no time.
So, choose to do one thing different this week. You will be pleasantly surprised with how a few new twists can effect the transformation of your body and give your workouts a new outlook.