Adding variety to your workouts does many things.
- challenges your muscles
- protects your joints
- challenges your mind
- eliminates missing movements
- adds longevity
- makes workouts more fun
- makes you more likely to workout forever
But How Do I Add Infinite Variety to My Workouts?
There are honestly infinite ways to add variety to your workouts, today I’m going to share with you the best ways that I continue changing up all of my workouts at 40 Plus Personal Training.
ENJOY!!!
USE DIFFERENT GRIPS:
There are countless ways to change up your grips while you exercise, here are some of my favorites.
- wide grip
- narrow grip
- underhand grip
- neutral grip
- single arm
- rotational grips
- alternating
USE DIFFERENT RANGES OF MOTIONS (ROM) AND TEMPOS
Another great way to add tons of variety is to change your range or motion (ROM) and change tempos.
A few of my favorite ways to change tempos and range of motions are
- negative reps (make your motion take 4-5 seconds)
- super negatives (make each rep take 20-30 seconds)
- speed reps (move as fast as you can SAFELY)
- pause reps (pause your motion in the middle of the rep for 2-3 seconds to add tension)
- isometrics (hold a position for a designed amount of time, or push against something you can’t move for a designed amount of time)
CHANGE ANGLES OF YOUR EXERCISE
Another great way to add variety to your workout routine is to simply change the angle of your exercise.
There are lots of ways that you can add variety by changing your angle, but some of the simple ones involve chest exercises like
- Incline Bench Press
- Decline Bench Press
- Flat Bench Press
- Standing Chest Press (using levers, or cables, or bands, etc.)
- Floor Presses
CREATE INSTABILITY
Creating instability is the ultimate hack in adding fun variety to workouts, you can dramatically change any exercise with an endless array of instability tricks.
Creating instability in your workouts also strengthens your core and improves your balance.
Some of my favorite ways to add instability to any exercise are:
- using chains for upper body work
- hanging weights from bars with resistance bands
- sandbags
- water weights (even filling milk/juice/soda bottles with water)
- Laying/Standing/Sitting on Terra-Cores, Bosu Balls, and/or Swiss Balls
- Using springboards, slacklines, or sliders
- Standing on one leg, using one arm, or alternating
- simply holding your legs in the air during nearly any exercise.
CHANGE RESISTANCE TYPES
If you have access to a variety of equipment changing the type of resistance can be the easiest way to add variety. Even moving from one cable to another can sometimes change the feel of an exercise.
Different gyms will obviously have different kinds of equipment, so obviously you will need to change depending on what you have available to you.
Here are a few different examples of how to change the form of resistance on a few popular exercises:
Forms of Resistance for Glute Bridges:
- dumbbells, weight plates, barbells
- resistance band around the knees
- sandbag or heavy bag (probably the most comfortable version)
- feet on sliders, bosu ball, swiss ball, terra core, slide board, spring board, slackline, in trx etc….
Forms of Resistance for Rows
- dumbbell rows
- lever rows
- standing cable rows
- seated bowflex rows
- fusion rows
- kpulley rows
- tank rows
- inverted rows (bar)
- inverted rows (trx or rings)
As you can see, if you have equipment available to you there are tons of ways to add variety to any exercise, especially if you are willing to get creative.
NOW YOU HAVE ALL THE INFORMATION YOU NEED TO CREATE INFINITE VARIETY IN YOUR WORKOUTS
There are infinite ways to create infinite variety in your workouts, there are still endless ways that we haven’t even mentioned here, but this list should really give you all the ideas you need to create infinite variety in your own workouts.
Remember
- switch your grips
- change your speeds
- alter your range of motion (ROM)
- change angles
- create instability
- change the form of resistance
You can always combine variables too!
ENJOY!!!
40 Plus Personal Training 