Make your Workouts more Challenging

If you’re pretty consistent with a fitness routine (and by consistent we don’t mean the same time every day, or same days every week especially when you’re someone who is always on the go), it can be easy to hit a plateau. Living the traveling lifestyle, we don’t have set routines daily, but if fitness is important to you, you find a way to make it work. If you keep doing the same workouts over and over, chances are your body is going to come to a point where change isn’t going to occur and you’ll just be maintaining your weight or physique. Change can be scary, with anything, but if you are seeking results and aren’t seeing any differences, your body probably has hit a standstill. It’s time for a challenge. If you’re new to working out, these tips are also beneficial for you! Here are a few ways you can start challenging yourself in your workouts.

• Use/Increase Weights – increasing your weights (or using weights if you don’t already) sounds like you’re going to bulk up. Don’t believe the myth. It takes an extreme increase in the amount of calories you’d consume to put on that kind of muscle. Adding or Increasing your weights will shape your body, creating more defined muscles, but it it will not make it bigger aka body builder size. Your body in turn will burn more calories because muscles burn more calories than fat. Lifting heavier helps improve your overall athletic performance and thus you feel like a badass when you can lift a little more each time than you were able to lift before! 

• Pulse it out – after you finish an exercise, add in little pulse movements to really work your muscles. Pulse movements are tiny movements, usually one to two inches above and below the point of maximum tension when performing an exercise. Pulses stimulate and engage your muscles. It’s a great way to maximize fatigue in your muscles, especially when you don’t have access to weights. You can add pulses to bodyweight exercises and still reap great results.  

• Add in Plyos – Plyos, short for plyometrics, are exercises that exert maximum force in short intervals of time aka exercises that generally focus on jumping or explosive movements (lunges, squats, clap push-ups, etc)  Plyos are used to increase strength, speed and endurance, and are a great way to really kick your workouts up a notch! Add in plyometric movements to rev up your heart rate/metabolism, fatigue your muscles, and overall improve your fitness. It’s another great way to create resistance during your workouts if you don’t have weights. Note* start slowly when adding in ploys and work your way up to increase duration of time, intensity and difficulty of the exercise. For example, if you can’t perform jumping movements, try moving at a quicker pace. If you are new to jumping movements, take your time and focus on form before increasing your speed.

With any new workout regimen or exercise that you are new to or not familiar with performing, It’s always important to start slowly and gradually work your way up whether that’s adding weights, increasing weights, increasing reps, or adding in ploys. Always be careful when lifting weights, or when you are performing an exercise by making sure you are using correct form. Start with weights that aren’t super heavy and practice until you get the form right, before increasing your weights. There are a ton of helpful videos on YouTube for many exercises to start learning correct form or to learn a new exercise. If you are new to working out in general, specifically with weights, read up on our tips on our blog post here: “Weightlifting and Strength Training Tips.”

You can also check out our YouTube channel for a video on these three ways you can challenge yourself in your workouts by clicking the link here! Looking for more Fitness Myths that we debunk, read “The Facts Behind Fitness Myths”

Have any tips of your own you’d like to share? Feel free to leave a comment? Any topics you want us to discuss or write about next, you can email us, or find us on Instagram @Fit_forFlight!

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