Change - Homework Assignment #2

[Rob]

Changing Your Fitness Program

Change is good

Change is very good.

we're heading into week 5, our second month and it's also the first of the year which signals a time for change, for new beginnings and for new years resolutions.

Its time to ramp things up a bit and make this your best week ever in the Winter weight loss challenge.

Change Your Training Program Every 4 To 6 Weeks
Having worked with a trainer for so many years and knowing about how the body adapts to it's training environment and stimuli within 4 to 6 weeks, I'm here to remind you that you should come up with a new fitness routine this week (end of week 4) or at the very latest, at the end of week 6 so I'm making this a 2 week homework assignment as well

It's at about the 4 to 6 week mark that we begin to get bored with our routine and our body adapts to it.

Changing it keeps things fresh for us (mentally) as well as keeps the body guessing so that it has to adapt to the new order and exercises.

Variables in your workout that you can (and should) change:

- change the order in which you do your workout -
If you did Legs first, do Back first, if you did supersets first and straight exercises first, switch them around.

- change the exercises -
If you did squats and lunges in your last workout, do deadlifts and hack squats. If you used machines, use free weights

- change from high reps and lower weight to lower reps and lower weight -
if you were doing 3 sets of 15 reps, do 2 sets of 10 reps. Increase the weight and lower the reps.

- change the amount of rest time between your exercises -
If you rested for 90 seconds between exercises, shorten it to 60. If you rested for 60 seconds, rest for 45 instead

- superset some exercises to get more work done in less time -
Your body responds to load, so the more work you can get done in the same 45 minutes, the better. To do this, you can superset exercises. Supersetting means to do two exercises back to back without rest and thusly get more work done (skipping the 60 second rest time between them). Idealy, to fully work the muscle groups, you would do complimentary body parts: ie: supersetting bicep curls with tricep extensions, or doing two chest exercises ie: flyes with presses

and always remember these two rules

- your workout should end after 45 minutes. After 45 minutes you're doing more harm than good as you enter the catabolic zone

- give yourself 48 hours between weight training workouts to fully benefit from the Anabolic phase that begins 24 hours after your finish your workout. (that's a FULL day between workouts)

So, this week's homework is to develop a new weight training workout and post it. Give it some thought and post your changes.