When was the last time you changed your routine at the gym? Most people stick to a tried-and-true formula of 30 minutes to an hour of cardio plus weight training a specific muscle group. The problem with doing that repeatedly is two-fold, however. Mentally, you become less engaged and less motivated to work out, while physically your body adapts to the routine, meaning your fitness levels plateau and results decrease. Don’t let this happen to you; mix things up and get better results. Here are three ways to try doing just that.

Mix and match your cardio

Running the same 30 minutes on the treadmill every day at the same speed gets a little tedious after a while. It’s amazing that some people manage to do this for months or even years on end. The biggest problem with doing this is that your body adapts after time and, as a result, its effectiveness as a cardio burning routine is lessened. By switching up your cardio on a daily basis, you will continually challenge your body and get better results.

Your best bet is to avoid doing the same type of cardio more than twice in any given week. Almost every gym has treadmills, elliptical machines, bicycles and rowing machines, so it won’t be that hard to find something different to do each day to get your heart pumping. It’s also not a bad idea to constantly be changing your speed, duration, and resistance levels, in order to keep your body from getting used to any one activity.

Invest in a personal training session

You can probably come up with lots of reasons to not participate in a personal training session. They can be expensive or require you to find time in your schedule, but the pros can far outweigh the cons. Even if you only did one personal training session a month, it would give you an important break from your normal gym routine.

More importantly, a personal trainer will teach you new exercises that you can incorporate into your regime, to help you develop a more robust plan of action on the other days you work out. A lot of gyms even offer complimentary or discounted personal training sessions for your first time, meaning you can try it once and at least see how you like it.

Get some new tunes

It isn’t always about what you do at the gym that can make things feel repetitive. If you listen to the same music over and over again, chances are your effort and motivation will decline as you get bored of what you’re listening to. Not having music that pumps you up while you get your pump on can be a motivation killer.

Each week, you should set aside some time to find new material – music, podcasts, audiobooks or whatever you listen to during your workout – that will motivate you to go to the gym. This will help ensure that no two fitness trips feel exactly the same, and that you are engaged during your workout.

Our experts can help you stay focused on your fitness goals at all times. Get in touch with us today and we’ll make sure your workout never gets stale.