You need to have variety in your workout routine. You shouldn’t perform the same workouts over and over again, and using a variety of different workouts over time can help keep you from getting bored and help you improve your fitness level. You can get this variety by using different exercises from workout to workout and by making slight variations to exercise during each workout.
I hope you squat during your workouts. You really should, as the squat is one of the great exercises. A great way to get variety in your workouts is to use many different stances/foot positions during your squat session.
You should use the basic, shoulder-to-hip width “even stance’ foot position for squatting, but you should also use squat stances of different widths. Squat with your feet thisclose together, really wide, and all points in between.
But don’t limit the variety you use to the width of your squat stance, as you can also stagger your squat stance so that one foot is slightly in front of the other, using about a heel-to-toe relationship. Of course you should perform an equal amount of squats with each foot forward – balance is as important as variety in your workouts. You can also point your toes out, in, have one foot straight and the other foot pointed, either staggered or even.
When you add the different width stances to the staggered stances and other varieties, you can experience a tremendous amount of variety in your workouts. You don’t have to do all of the varieties in each workout, but feel free to experiment and mix and match.
Another leg exercise, the lunge, can be altered in many ways. You can step forward, step on a variety of angles forward, laterally, and a variety of angles to the rear. Utilizing this kind of variety in your workouts can be a tremendous boost to your fitness level.
The push-up, another great exercise, can be modified with the pattern used with the squat. Changing your hand positions from set to set, changing the width, stagger and angles of the hands will make push-ups more challenging and effective than sticking with the traditional method, set-after-set, workout-after-workout.
Experiment with having your hands at different heights, placing one hand on the floor the other hand on a Reebok Step or other similar piece of equipment. Be creative and your workouts will be more fun and effective.
