Working out is an excellent way to increase circulation, tone your body and make you an all around healthier person but what do you do when you feel that you aren’t reaching your true workout potential? Here are a few tips from the staff here at Fitness Town.
1. Lift Weights: If you aren’t already working out with weights, there are many benefits to be had by adding them into your regimen. Weight training assists with weight loss and maintaining the loss. It does so by creating muscle which revs up your metabolism, burns calories and burns fat.1 If you are already lifting weights then you can increase the intensity or volume. In a study conducted by the National Strength & Conditioning Association2 it was discovered that more frequent adjustments to the intensity level, referred to as Daily Undulating Periodization or DUP training, was more effective then gradually increasing the intensity while decreasing the training volume within and between cycles, known as linear periodization. For example, you may switch from high volume–low intensity to low volume–high intensity within the same week by performing sets of 12–15 at the highest weight you can lift on Monday, sets of 8–10 of the at a higher weight to make up for the decrease in repetition on Wednesday, and sets of 3–5 on Friday. You can also switch this up in a single workout. The linear model would progress over a number of months but as seen by the study, the frequent changes with the DUP method resulted in higher muscle gains. Kettlebells are another excellent way for conditioning.
2. Interval Training: You can apply interval training to any excercise you do. We posted a great infographic about some methods to do this. The idea behind interval training is to workout at your hardest for a period of time and then have a rest period during which you are working out at a lower intensity level. As your fitness level increases you can decrease the time between intervals and increase the intensity during your high output interval.
3. Monitor your heart rate + workout accordingly: By purchasing a heart rate monitor, you can monitor your output based on your BPM. You can also do interval training by increasing your target heart rate during your maximum output interval. You can refer to this or other charts for information about your desired target heart rate.
4. Consult a professional for more ideas or a specific regimen. You can hire a trainer, ask our staff for suggestions or consult our wide range of do-it-yourself books and DVD’s.
5.Change it up: The best way to increase your results is to ensure you are engaging different muscle groups and doing new and different things. If you continue to do the same routine at the same level your body will stop seeing results.
References:
1 http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/features/exercise-fitness-tips-improve-your-health?page=2
2 http://www.fmh.utl.pt/agon/cpfmh/docs/documentos/recursos/110/A%20Comparison%20of%20Linear%20and%20Daily%20Undulating%20Periodized%20Programs%20with%20Equated%20Volume%20and%20Intensity%20of%20Training.pdf
