Switch Up Your Workout Routine

There are times in life when we need to change in order to grow and evolve, and that includes your workout routine!

The type of yoga that I practice and teach is ever-changing. It’s what I am drawn to and has kept me practicing yoga almost daily since 1999. I’m not too fond of the style of yoga that has a set sequence of poses that you do every time you roll out your mat for a few reasons.

Your body becomes used to the movements in the order they happen, and the muscles memorize where they need to be at any given time. I want my yoga practice to help me stay strong and flexible and prevent me from injury as I age. And doing the same movements all the time is not realistic to prevent injury. We need to surprise our muscles, moving differently so that the body knows how to react in sudden moments.

I need variety to work out. Doing the same thing bores me to tears, and I am less likely to stick with something if it is always the same, all of the time. My brain is constantly thinking, analyzing, and coming up with another business idea, and in order to shut it down I need to be doing something that my brain can’t predict so that I can get away from my own thoughts.

We are each drawn to something initially for one reason but why we keep doing it often changes and evolves as we get better at doing it. Your body and mind grow stronger, and you’ve tapped into the mastery of some aspect of it. Even if it’s not all of it, feeling like you’ve mastered something, whether a downward dog or a pushup, feels amazing.

I practice vinyasa yoga several times a week, but I also lift weights and walk daily, getting a minimum of ten thousand steps. Each and every one of us needs diversity in our physical activities. If you find yourself saying one answer when your doctor asks what you do for exercise, that should be your red flag warning that it’s time to add something different to shock your muscles and your metabolism.

• If you walk daily for exercise, add some weight-bearing exercises once a week.
• Take an exercise or yoga class.
• Try using a different machine at the gym.
• Change the days that you do things. If you normally run on Saturdays, try going for a run on a different day of the week. Your body has a storyline based on what you have done throughout the course of your day, and going from a weekend workout to a weekday workout is a great way to shock your system!

Print out the above image and tape it to your refrigerator, and make a plan for five days this week to move your body in various ways. The key is to move the body differently. If you feel stuck, I want to help you past that stage. Let’s jump on a coaching call and create a plan to get you moving again and feeling more confident in your body.