Variety Is The Spice Of Weight Loss
Posted by Chad Anderson CSCS on December 2, 2008 under Weight Loss | 
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If you’re having trouble dropping the pounds, you may just need more variety in your exercise routine. From my experiences, most people stay on a given exercise routine way too long and don’t do enough different exercises. They usually find what’s comfortable and stick to it. Unfortunately, this is not an effective strategy.
Unless you are a beginning exerciser, your exercise routine should change every 4-6 weeks as a minimum. Your body will quickly adapt to any routine it is given, at which point the program essentially becomes useless. That’s not to say it isn’t a good program, but no matter how great it was it will become ineffective at some point in time.
Your workouts need to change frequently in order to consistently apply new stimulus to the body. Without this new stimulus, your progress will become stagnant. If you do not give your body a reason to adapt further than what it has, it will not do so. Therefore, change your routine consistently every 4-6 weeks.
Also, I should add that your workouts should have variety within them as well. Thinking in terms of training movements instead of muscles will help accomplish this. Too often we get caught up in working “muscle groups” and tend to forget how our bodies function as a whole. Vary your movement patterns from workout to workout (this includes cardio as well).
If your weight loss efforts have come to a grinding halt, take a look at your workouts over the last 6-12 weeks or so. If you notice you’ve been performing the same routine for quite some time, more variety may just be what you need to get moving again.
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