This week on our walk around Beauchamp Point in Rockport, I pointed out to Hunter that the wind was coming from the south. This southerly breeze is a tell-tale sign of summer coming. As a sailor this is a welcomed change, one that brings new opportunities and new activities for the months ahead. This change in my routine keeps me engaged, challenges me, and is exciting! You might have noticed that we changed routines at the gym this week too.
One of the luxuries of going to a gym that offers group classes is the advanced programming. I love not having to think about my workout routine. I never have to walk in to Hybrid Fitness, look at the weight room and say, “What am I going to do today?” At Hybrid we have a team of trainers who puts together our workouts for us. Thank you!
Improving our fitness and gaining strength both come from a consistent routine. Our muscles adapt as we challenge them, whether that is through heavier load, higher reps, or faster cardio, and this is where we get stronger. But we cannot achieve these gains by doing the same thing at every workout. Switching to a lighter load, fewer reps, or a change of movement overall is necessary at certain times. Just when you were used to last month’s routine, we mixed it up on you, didn’t we?
Why do we do this?
- Build new muscles:
Recreational exercisers (that’s us), can build a little bit of everything and be physically ready for anything. Rather than training only one part of our body we can share the love and build powerful legs, a strong upper body, and our endurance through a variety of exercises.
- Move off the Plateau
My favorite reason for change is avoiding the plateau. Once we do something over and over our bodies get very efficient at it and we eventually adapt, which means burning fewer calories and not experiencing strength gain. Mixing in new movements makes us work harder and progress more.
- Prevent overuse injury:
When we do something over and over we are more likely to experience a repetitive strain injury. Changing it up, gives our joints, muscles, and connective tissue a chance to rest. We are training for life, and this is why we want to have a well rounded training program. We do not need to over-emphasize any specific muscle as though we are an Olympic shot-put champion.
- Prevent boredom:
This one is obvious, but important. If we aren’t having fun, or feeling challenged, we will lose interest. Mixing it up keeps us coming back for more!
With our Hybrid workouts we go from high volume and low intensity to develop our foundation and build our muscles, and then we progress to low volume, high intensity where we are reaching our top performance in those movements. As we hit that peak we move on to other movements and develop a new muscle group. Through these cycles we are reaping the benefits of our hard work, and as clients, we don’t have to give it a second thought. Workouts that have their own winds of change~ What a luxury!