This is actually one of the better questions I’ve received recently. Instinctively, my first thought is NO. More on this in a minute.

If, however, you are new to fitness and just starting to exercise regularly, then by all means do whatever type of exercise you like, even if it means doing the same thing every day. You will eventually reach a point when the results taper off, you lose motivation, get bored, or all of the above. That is when you’ll want to mix it up.

Even if you are a fitness guru, there will come a time when your “normal” workout routine isn’t working, or you suffer from burnout (this is common). To keep your muscles challenged and continue to see results, you need include the following components in your routine:

1. Variety

2. Cardiovascular exercise

3. Muscle strengthening exercise

4. Progression (which is just a fancy word for, “gradually making it harder” so that muscles and/or cardiovascular fitness continue to improve)

5. Stretching

Variety is the spice of life, and also the key to a successful workout routine. By continually surprising your muscles with new challenges, they will in turn adapt and become stronger, more efficient.

To mix up your routine, you  might try martial arts, swimming, weight training, yoga or Pilates, Zumba, BodyPump…you get the picture. This is also called “cross training.”

Cardiovascular exercise is the calorie-burning equivalent of driving your car on the highway. Aim for 30-60 mins on most days of the week.

Strength training is beneficial in many ways. It builds lean muscle, which increases resting metabolic rate. It also helps prevent injury by strengthening the muscles around the joints.

Progression will get you from A to B. You can progress both your cardiovascular and strength training routines, and there are many ways to do it. Read more about how to progress your routine.

Stretching We sit all day, move forward  most of the time, and, as the title of this post would indicate, tend to do the same workouts over and over. As a result, muscles get T-I-G-H-T. Stretching at least a few times a week for 15-20 minutes (2-3 minutes for each major muscle if you do 8 stretches and hold each one 15-30 seconds, and repeat), will go a long way toward improving elasticity, and help prevent injury. I’m a fan of yoga, as well as Pilates, but really, any stretching is good in my book.

You might also like: Is your workout working?and, Strength Training 101

Do you have a favorite “mix it up” routine? What do you do to add spice to your workouts?

Whether you are a die-hard gym-junkie or a “start and stopper” (you start a fitness program, follow it diligently for several weeks or months, then stop), or somewhere in between, no doubt you’ve hit a point when you were either:

• Tired of exercise
• Tired of the gym
• Tired of your routine
• Tired of not making steady progress…

I could add more, but I think you get the point: at some point, your exercise routine, no matter how regimented (or not) it is, might get stale. Psst…I have a secret: An often over-looked, but very important, component of that plan is “recovery” time!

Recovery time is built into fitness plans to allow the body time to rest. During this built-in rest time, lots of good stuff happens. Muscles rebuild themselves and metabolic changes take place at a cellular level. There is a lot going on when we exercise that we may not feel or see. Without recovery days, the body can’t properly rebuild and repair. Miss these important rest days enough times, and several things may occur:

• Burn out
• Injury
• Lack of progress (you won’t see further adaptations – you’ll “plateau”)

Follow this “Rule of Thumb”: 1-2 days of rest per week, not necessarily in a row. For weight training, switching to a cardiovascular activity the following day, or training different muscle groups, will allow the muscles previously trained time to adapt and recover. The same goes for cardiovascular activity: after several days in a row of cardio, a day of rest or cross-training is a good idea. This will give you a chance to work different muscles and allow the muscles typically used a chance to rest. So if you are a runner, cross-training with cycling or swimming gives the “running” muscles a chance to rest. This is why Triathlon training is often called the perfect “triad” — cross-training is built in!

How do you like that creative title? Sometimes, all you need to say is all you need to say. More to the point…cross training is super important, and after a quick look at my post log revealed a glaring lack of information about this super important topic, thought I’d better hop to it and tell you why, CROSS TRAINING IS IMPORTANT!

Think about this for a minute – if you spent all of your day walking forward and that is all you did (no sitting, no bending, no lunging, squatting, or even stooping, no climbing…okay, you get the picture), what do you think would happen to the muscles getting perpetually used? Yep- they’d be over-worked. And the muscles not getting used? They would be under-worked, under-developed (i.e, weak). The end result? Muscle imbalance, over-use injuries, and a host of other problems. The morale of the story: mix up your movement.

The temptation to do the same type of workout (heck, maybe even the same exact workout), is strong, and hey, I get it. It is easier to do the same thing – it takes the thinking (and planning) out of it. But, alas, variety is the spice of life, and also the ingredient that will help you achieve the results you want to achieve.

Let’s pretend for a moment that you are training for a running race. Most plans call for 3-5 days of running at various distances and speeds with a day or two of recovery built in, as well as a day or two of cross-training. the purpose of cross-training in this case (and in all cases, really), is to balance out the program by providing resistance to the working muscles different from the normal method; to strengthen muscles not typically used during the training program; to stretch tight muscle groups; and to reduce impact to overused muscles. There are many other reasons, which I’ll circle back to in another post.

Examples of cross-training in this scenario (i.e, for a runner), might include: swimming, cycling, elliptical training, strength training, yoga or Pilates, dancing, or rock climbing. Once you break free of the idea that doing something different is hard, bad, a step backward (and it is NONE of those things), you’re free to experiment and have fun! Chances are very good, in fact, that you’ll improve at your sport because you’ll have balance in your routine. Odds are even better that you’ll be able to enjoy your favorite sport even longer, because cross-training truly does help prevent overuse injuries.

I’ll leave off here. Next post…the nitty-gritties of cross-training, how to do it, when to do it, and how often to do it.

Stay tuned…

I did a really, really dumb thing yesterday…I injured myself (while cross-training, of all things), because I listened to the instructor instead of the voice in my own head. Yes, you heard me right -I basically just told you to not listen to a fitness instructor.  Let me explain.

Maybe this was a premonition, or just a timely idea, but I found a bookmark the other day that said, “There is only one of me. There is only one of anybody. That is why steps look different on different people.” Judith Jamison said that. She was a well known dancer and choreographer, and obviously was aware that we are all individuals. Individually, we move differently because our bodies are put together differently. My range of motion is different than yours, yours is different than your neighbors, etc. Respect that. Know your limits.

I know, I’m usually encouraging you to push the limits…imagine NO limits…REMOVE limits. Those are “perceived” limits though – the kind of limits we place on ourselves such as, “I can’t do a triathlon, because I’m afraid to swim.” That is a fixable problem. The kind of limits I’m talking about are physical limits. Yes, there really are such things, and if you’ve ever tried yoga, you well know what I’m talking about. No doubt that first class felt awkward, hard, frustrating. Am I right? I doubt your body could bend and twist quite the same way as, well, any given person. Maybe you were more flexible. Maybe less. Alas, we are all different.

Now back to my dumb injury. I know my limits, and had been nursing a cranky piriformis problem for several months. Opting to attend a boot camp class I’ve frequented a few times this year (thinking the cross-training would do me some good), I did a stupid thing: I missed the warm up because I arrived late. Then, I did another silly thing: I listened to the instructor’s advice when she (not very tactfully, mind you) informed me that I wasn’t sprinting during one of her intervals because I wasn’t on my toes. A) I don’t sprint, and B) I don’t run on my toes. Ever. But, opting to prove to both myself and the instructor that I could, indeed, do it the “right” way, I badly strained my piriformis and part of my glute. Hurt like the devil, I tell you, but you know what? I’m the only one to blame. I knew better. The thing is, you might not, and I don’t want any of my readers to fall into this trap of, 1) aiming to please an instructor  (I could say more, but will take the higher road here), and 2) trying to prove something to yourself or anyone else, especially when you know your limits.

Listen to your body. Respect your physical limitations (you know what they are.) And finally, don’t assume that because someone is teaching a class, she knows your body. Only you know what your body can truly do – respect that, and don’t be afraid to tell an instructor, “sorry, I’m doing it my way, because I don’t feel comfortable trying something I don’t think I’m ready for.”

To your health, and SAFETY!

There is a reason that your gym or fitness center has only two or three rowing machines on the cardio floor…they just aren’t as much fun as other types of cardio equipment, but Indo-Row promises to change the minds of skeptical fitness enthusiasts.

<strong>What is <a href=”http://www.indo-row.com/”>Indo-Row</a>?</strong>

Created by World Rowing Champion and endurance athlete, Josh Crosby, Indo-Row is indoor rowing formatted for group fitness and it is spreading like wildfire through southern California. In fact, celebrities are flocking to their favorite gyms for what the company claims is, “The Perfect Calorie Burn.” And the perfect calorie burn it is!

My first experience with Indo-Row was at IDEA’s Fitness Fusion conference in Chicago in 2009. As a competitive runner, exercising sitting down seemed pointless, yet the workout was challenging (I’m talking BURNING quadriceps) and the competitive nature of the group class kept motivation high. Added bonus: the time flew by!

Find a class near you:

<a href=”http://revolutionfitness.net/Indo-Row.htm”>Revolution Fitness,</a> Santa Monica, CA
<a href=”http://www.thesportsclubla.com/site/”>The Sports Club LA</a>