Is Your Love of Fitness Variety Hurting Your Progress?

So you want to learn more about gardening, and you choose to do so by going to the library and reading one page from a different book every day.

You might be thinking, “Why on earth would I do that?” And you’re right, that would be a very inefficient way to learn. 

Yet, a lot of people take on a similar process when striving to gain strength and muscle tone by doing a variety of different workouts each day and week, and they’re disappointed when they don’t see results. 

By reading one page of a different book each day, you will probably pick up a few facts here and there. But without the organized, strategic focus gained by reading a book from cover to cover, your learning isn’t going to be very cohesive. 

Same goes for doing a different type of workout every day and week. Sure, you are more active, and at first, you might notice your fitness level improving. But after a short while, the lack of strategic focus may interfere with your desired results if you are trying to gain strength and or muscle tone. You can think of following a strategic and repetitive program like reading a book from cover to cover. It’s much more efficient and effective. 

Here’s why:

Repetition is good

When we want to improve at something, we must practice. Whether it be playing an instrument or a sport or cooking or gardening, we get better with practice over time. When we partake in random workouts each day, we likely aren’t practicing the same exercises and thus, we aren’t giving our bodies a chance to improve. A strategic and effective program will include a variety of exercises that target different movement patterns, different planes of motion, and different muscle groups, but it will repeat for a minimum of 4 weeks to allow for improvement. 

Yet, too much repetition can be harmful

Although random workouts likely don’t give you the opportunity to practice the same exercises, many workouts likely include squats, lunges, and overhead presses. Doing these exercises every day at the very least will overtrain the muscle so much that it can’t strengthen, and at the very worst can lead to overtraining and injury. A strategic and effective program will ensure that you aren’t overtraining any particular joint or muscle group. 

Progressive overload is imperative 

Progressive overload refers to the gradual increase of stress on the body and can be accomplished by adding weight, sets, or repetitions to an exercise, improving form or range of motion, changing the tempo of an exercise, decreasing rest time between sets or between exercises, or increasing the length or frequency of workouts. However, the fitness industry has wrongly explained this in nuance terms as, “You need to keep your muscles guessing!” This makes it sounds like workout variety is the answer to gaining strength and muscle tone. However, as touched on earlier, repetition is good! And in addition to repetition, a strategic and effective program will implement some form of progressive overload each week to get the strength and muscle gains you’re seeking.  

Rest and deloading weeks are imperative, too

One part of a strategic and effective workout routine that is often overlooked is rest days. Having an appropriate work to rest ratio is important to avoid burnout or injury. An even more overlooked part of workout routines and programs is deloading days/weeks. It is not effective nor necessary to always train at 100% effort. A strategic and effective program should both increase and decrease in intensity at appropriate times to promote the building of strength and muscle and even more importantly, a lifetime of safe and healthy workouts. 

Overall, daily movement is the key to leading a life with less pain and less illness, and more strength and longevity. If simply moving is enough for you, keep up what you’re doing! However, if you are disappointed in the lack of results you’re seeing from the amount of work you’re putting in, it is worth stepping back and examining why that may be the case. 

If you’re ready to level up and trade in your random workout schedule for a program that is specifically written for you, your unique needs, your goals, your schedule and the equipment available to you, click here to schedule your complimentary, no-strings-attached consultation. We’ll chat and get the ball rolling towards the results you want to see ASAP!