Tired of following the same upper body-lower body routine week after week? Or maybe just the thought of reviving your old standby routine makes you want to cringe in disgust.
No matter what your reason is for losing interest in working out, only one thing’s for sure — you’ve hit workout fatigue. If you notice, it seems a lot harder to get yourself to hit the gym and maintain your enthusiasm which then reflects on your physical progress.
This doesn’t mean you won’t have any progress at all though. Workouts, no matter how repetitive and boring they are, are still productive. However, this progress won’t last long if you are unable to keep up with your routine consistently. So, what is the solution? It’s time to change things up!
There’s NO need to change your workout routine. Just tweak it a little bit to boost your way to the right path. Here’s how.
DO THE SAME MOVES DIFFERENTLY
Like I said, you don’t need to change your entire routine. Just do a bit of tweaking so you won’t have to let go of an exercise you actually enjoy.
Let’s say you’re bored by repetition. What you can do is change an exercise with a new alternative instead of totally taking it off of the routine. So, change the back squat for a front squat. Same goes with using dumbbells, switch up to barbells occasionally, or vice versa.
TRY NEW MOVES
If you’re getting bored of the same old routine, try adding some new movements to hike up the challenge and keep it interesting. We tend to go back to the things we’re most comfortable with but it’s always a good idea to pepper in some new steps from time to time.
Think of things you haven’t had the chance to try yet: a new sport, a new kind of exercise, or a new workout class perhaps? This will not only improve your workout routine, you may be surprised to find out there are other things you might love.
CHANGE UP YOUR REST
It’s commonplace to maintain a 50-second rest period between sets, especially for hypertrophy sets. This generally likens to 1:1 work-rest ratio enough to aid you to build muscles. The occasional change to more or less rest between sets can be enough to make the training session interesting again.
CHANGE THE TEMPO
The ultimate goal here is to put your muscles under stress. More often than not, we try to do the movement too quickly which kind of defeats the purpose, especially if hypertrophy is your goal.
For the eccentric phase (lowering part of the squat) especially, take more time. If the eccentric phase normally takes you 3 seconds, try doubling it to 6 seconds occasionally. This is an effective way of increasing the time your muscles are under tension while working out.
TRY TO INSERT SOME PAUSES
To ramp up the challenge, try to add in a pause before starting the concentric phase of an exercise, or even try stopping during the eccentric phase of the exercise. This step breaks the momentum, giving your muscles more work to overcome the loss of momentum.
Source: https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/how-to-switch-up-your-workout
