It’s recommended that you should be working out around 4 to 5 times a week, with 3 workouts being the minimum to achieve your goals for fitness. That’s a lot of time spent doing your chosen fitness routine, so it’s not surprising that after a while the routine starts to get old.
The body adapts fairly quickly to a single routine, so to keep seeing those healthy changes to your body, you need to mix things up and work on different areas of fitness.
Changing up your fitness routine helps you to target different areas of your body. While there are some very popular options for fitness routines, like CrossFit and bungee workouts, for overall health, it can pay to mix things up and give your body a true workout.
One of the best ways to diversify your routine is to focus on a different area of the four main types of exercise: flexibility, balance, aerobic, and strength. Each type of exercise has some unique benefits to your health and keeps things exciting and effective when it comes to getting stuck into your routine.
Yoga and stretch exercises are great ways to incorporate flexibility exercise into your fitness routine. The key benefits of flexibility exercise revolve around expanding your motion range and maintaining a limber body. Through flexibility exercise, you stretch your muscles and lower the potential injury risk during the rest of your routine, and whilst playing sports.
This type of exercise focuses on strengthening your core, which can be of particular benefit when avoiding accidents later in life. No matter your body type or health levels, incorporating key balance exercises like Tai Chi, heel-to-toe walking and balance board workouts can help you to improve your overall balance.
This form of exercise is a very varied mix; aerobic exercise can be swimming, running, dancing, biking, or really anything that gets your heart pumping. Aerobic exercises are fantastic for your cardiovascular system. With regular aerobic exercises, you can help keep your lungs healthy, enhance your endurance, and even prevent problems like high blood pressure and diabetes.
These exercises target your muscles but also your bones. Whether you decide to lift free weights, work on your push-ups or use resistance bands, strength exercises will increase your level of lean muscle mass, and help you get stronger and fitter.
Each area of exercise contains different subcategories with different routines you can follow, giving you plenty of avenues to explore when looking to diversify your fitness routine. If you’re ready to dive in and spice things up, then take a look at our four top ways to successfully diversify:
First things first, it’s important to take things slowly. If you jump straight into a new exercise type that your body’s not used to, then you could end up injuring yourself. Even if you’re in great physical health, check out new classes at a beginner or intermediate level, and incorporate simple exercises first.
A great way to get a feel for different types of exercise is to experiment with exercise equipment that you may not have tried before. Brands like Hire Fitness in the UK provide access to various types of equipment that you can try from the comfort of your own home. Ever tried a rowing machine or exercise bike? Get experimental at the gym or hire the equipment for use at home or work.
One of the key reasons why many people get bored with their routine is because it’s not challenging enough. Upping the intensity will keep the routine effective and provide plenty of diversity as you take on new challenges.
If you want to run faster and build your leg muscles, then hill running might be your key to success. Want to work on core fitness? Try signing up to a class in your spare time.
Working out with a friend can be much more enjoyable than working out alone. It also has the added benefit of a constant challenge. If you’ve been focusing on strength exercises and have a friend that’s been working on aerobic exercise, then it can help to share tips and work out together.
Alternatively, you can take your fitness to the next level and explore our personal training courses to gain further insight and expertise to enhance your fitness journey.
There are many different fitness routine types to explore, with endless exercises, classes, and equipment for you to try out to mix up your daily routine. To avoid the feeling of a stale workout and get the most back from your fitness routine, constantly think about new elements and exercises to include!
Written by Claire Ward.