How do you know when it is time to change your workout routine?

Here are 4 signs that it is time to change your workout:

1. Your workout bores you.  You used to like walking on the treadmill, so why do you dread your workout each day?  It is very easy to get bored when you do the same routine every day.  It helps to add variety to your workout. A few ideas that help break the boredom are to walk outside, add speed intervals, change your workout music, or bring a friend along.  If that doesn’t work, then try a new activity such as riding a bike or taking an aerobics class.  Change can help keep your workouts interesting so that you will keep coming back for more.

2.  You have hit a plateau and no longer see results from a workout.  Someone who does the same activity tends to hit a plateau much sooner than someone who adds variety to their workouts.  Variety means changing the activity or changing the duration of the workout.  This will help keep your muscles challenged so the results keep coming!

3.  Your workout leaves you more tired and sore than before.  Exercise should give you more energy, not leave you feeling rundown.  If you are always sore, you could be overtraining.  Your body needs time for rest and recovery.  Rest and recovery is the time when your muscles repair and rebuild.  If you don’t give your body time for recovery, then you become weaker instead of stronger.

4.  Your workout is too easy.  If your workouts aren’t challenging anymore, I recommend getting a heart rate monitor so that you evaluate how hard you are working. If you see that you aren’t getting your heart rate in the target range, then you know it is time to bump up the intensity. 

Changing your workout routine whenever you experience these signs will keep you in a continual mode of improvement.  Take time to pay attention to how you feel both physically and mentally.  Exercise should not be a chore that you dread, but something that makes you feel good about yourself.

What have you done lately to keep your workouts fun and challenging?

Can you do too much cardiovascular activity?

It is possible to do too much cardio. What counts as “too much” is different for everyone, and depends on a lot of factors, including the intensity of your exercise, your fitness level, how much activity you do each day, how much you eat, your health status, your fitness goals, etc.Usually, 60-90 minutes of cardio is safe for most people, as long as…You aren’t elevating your heart rate above 80% (of your max) the whole time.

You are eating enough carbohydrates every day to replace the fuel you are using up.
Your body perceives exercise as a stressor, and chemically reacts the same way it does to “bad” stress. Therefore, too much exercise can have negative effects on your metabolism the same way that eating too few calories can. In addition, too much cardio exercise can result in muscle loss, which is not the outcome you want.

We recommend taking at least one day off from the cardio during the week-just as a mental health day, if nothing else. It’s easy to become compulsive about exercise, and having a day off is a good way to stay away from that. If it really makes you nervous or uncomfortable NOT to exercise, you could be heading for trouble.

If you see signs of general fatigue, irritability, sleep problems, physical soreness, or if your workouts start feeling harder than before, you’ll probably need to rest from cardio more than one day.

Does exercising on an empty stomach in the morning burn more fat?

I would not recommend exercising on an empty stomach because your blood sugar is low in the morning from not eating for 8-10 hours. It is recommended that you eat something 2 hours before working out. If you have proper fuel in your system, you are able to perform better. Eating will also reduce the chances of passing out during a workout.

Again, every person is different. Some people can workout on an empty stomach with no problems while others run the risk of getting sick and passing out.

Some experts say that exercising on an empty stomach burns more fat, but overall, the number of calories you burn during a workout is much more important.

What is Circuit Training?

Wow..this is personally my favorite way to exercise! Circuit training is a great way to do resistance training and aerobic training in one workout. You select a certain number of exercises, and go from one exercise to the next with little or no rest, until you’ve completed all of them. A circuit can be set up any way–it’s fun to be creative. You can do a full body circuit, a lower body circuit, core circuit, upper body circuit, etc. By doing the exercises consecutively, your heart rate stays in the aerobic zone, at the same time developing lean muscle tissue. You can also add in exercises like jump rope and step-ups to make it an anaerobic workout.Circuits are great for all levels, beginners up to advanced. A circuit of 6-8 exercises is usually a good beginner level, working up to 12-15 exercises done twice for advanced. As you can see, a circuit can last as short as 10-15 minutes and go up to 60 minutes.

I just started exercising to lose weight, but I have gained weight instead! Why?

Sometimes people can gain weight or not lose any weight when they first start an exercise routine. It is not uncommon for the first 4-6 weeks.  Why?  The extra weight is usually water because your body starts storing more fuel in the muscle cells so that it can be utilized during your workouts. The process of converting glucose(carbohydrates) into fuel that your muscles actually store and use(glycogen) requires three molecules of water for every molecule of glucose.  As your muscles are building up glycogen stores, your body has to retain extra water for this purpose.  That is what causes most of the initial weight gain or lack of weight loss. 

The extra water retention will stop once your body has adjusted to its new activity level.  At that point, you will start noticing the scale moving down.

The best advice is to stick with your exercise routine because every time you stop and restart exercising, (meaning you work out a few weeks consistently, then quit exercising-then start exercising again a few months later)you make it harder and harder for your body to respond to exercise in the form of weight loss. So every time you start back exercising, your body will not respond as well as it did previously.