When you’ve been at the gym for a while, it’s all too easy to get complacent and stop pushing yourself in your workouts. Are you challenging yourself each and every workout? If not, you’re not getting the results available to you! Challenging yourself is all part of the fun of working out, and it’ll help you to get fitter and healthier, as well as help you to look better. These seven ideas will help you to amp up your workouts.
Fire Up Your Muscles
Before you start working out, you probably know that you should always warm up and cool down. Warm ups should mean dynamic, meaning that you should get your heart rate up and body moving. You should do things like star jumps and moderate cardio for a few minutes. People make the mistake of doing static stretches, but they should be saved until your workout is over. However, firing up your muscles is entirely different. After you’ve warmed up, you focus on the muscle you’re about to work with bodyweight exercises, making sure it’s ready to go. You should already be feeling the burn a little, as this will help you to make even more progress. For instance, if you were heading to the gym to do legs, you could do some bodyweight glute bridges and donkey kicks.
Run On An Incline
Instead of running on a flat surface, run on an incline. This will tire you out much faster, and give your legs a workout too. Make the slope steeper slowly.
Go To Failure
When working with weights, or even bodyweight exercises, it’s easy to do the recommended number of repetitions, and then stopping. But if you could have done much more reps, this means you aren’t getting the most from your workout. Try going to failure on your last set sometimes!
Add A Finisher
Why not add a finisher to your workout, designed to make you sweat? The idea is that it’s intense. You should get all of that energy out of your tank with your finisher!
Invest In Accessories
Accessories can help you to amp up your workouts in lots of ways. Trackers, for example, can tell you your heart rate and help you to get into the optimal fat burning zone. A Copper knee sleeve might not sound exciting, but it can assist you to work out more efficiently and comfortably.
Try Sprinting
Instead of running, sprinting for 30 seconds and having a minute off, before repeating 10-12 times could be an excellent way to get sweating. It burns fat, not just calories, so you could have your dream body shape in no time!
Replace Cardio With A Class
Instead of doing the same old boring cardio sessions week after week, why not replace one cardio session with a class? A class is an excellent way to get a good workout in, and you won’t know what’s coming, which keeps things interesting! Plus, you’re sweating alongside others. It can help you to feel more motivated.
What’re Your Thoughts?
Ally Gonzales is the founder & editor-in-chief of RunningSoleGirl. Along with blogging she is also juggling attending college and majoring in Exercise and Sports Science with a Sports Management minor.
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