By Mike Kubas<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another day,\nanother workout. Just another day to grind out. We all know workouts can get\nstale if you\u2019re doing the same types of exercises or taking the exact same\nclass every time you\u2019re in the gym. Sometimes you need to mix it up a bit, not\njust to keep your gains coming, but also to keep yourself interested and\nmotivated. There\u2019s a number of different ways to go about this. A workout can\nbecome vastly different and more challenging just by altering a few variables. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A simple way to\nmake the same exercises feel completely different is to change or start\nmonitoring your rest periods. The time you rest in between sets greatly impacts\nyour next set. If you\u2019re currently\ntaking a long rest in between each of your sets, try cutting down your rest\nperiod to 30- 60 seconds in between sets. Shortening the rest periods will make\nyour working sets a bit more challenging as you\u2019re not allowing your muscles to\nfully recover. If you\u2019re using short rest periods, try increasing your rest\nperiod to 90-120 seconds in order to fully recover and get the most out of your\nworking sets. If you\u2019re training for strict hypertrophy – meaning muscle growth\nis your main priority – then right\naround 60 seconds of recovery is typically best. If your main goal is to\nincrease strength, you\u2019ll want a longer rest period to allow for the muscles to\nfully recover in order to maximize your effort during working sets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another way to mix\nup your workout is to vary your rep ranges. There are several ways to do this. An\nexample would be having one day where you do 4 sets of 10-12 reps, another day\n5 sets of 4-6 reps, and another day 2-3\nsets of 15-20 reps. For each of these days you keep the exercises the same, but\nchange the weight being used to correspond with the rep ranges. For instance,\nthe higher reps will require lower weights and the lower rep ranges will\nrequire heavier weights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lastly, another\nvariable you can adjust to dramatically change your workout is to train\nunilaterally. Most people will do their exercises with both of their arms or\nboth legs, a great way to change it up is to train each side of the body\nindividually. This puts more demand on your body and core to stabilize the\nweight and stops you from compensating with one side, if there is a strength or\nrange of motion difference between each side. You\u2019ll want to use slightly\nlighter weights than you would if training bilaterally. Unilateral training is\na great way to add a new challenge, push through a plateau, or just add some variation\nto your workouts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
These are just a\nfew simple adjustments you can make to your workout routine to add a little\nvariety and a new challenge. There are a lot of other ways to keep yourself\nengaged in your fitness pursuits including trying new group classes including yoga\nclasses, using new equipment, working with a personal trainer, or trying a completely\nnew exercise routine. Sometimes a little variety is enough to re-engage and\nmotivate yourself to continue pursuing your fitness goals and staying active. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you are considering signing up for personal training sessions or joining one of our fitness training programs<\/a> for semi-private personal training<\/a>, or for small group training<\/a>, we encourage you to register for a complimentary fitness consultation<\/a>, during which our fitness experts will discuss with you how best you can achieve your goals. You will also get a FREE Body Fat Analysis. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Mike Kubas Another day, another workout. Just another day to grind out. We all know workouts can get stale if you\u2019re doing the same types of exercises or taking the exact same class every time you\u2019re in the gym. Sometimes you need to mix it up a bit, not just to keep your gains […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":7140,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fitness"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-21 04:50:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastpointehealthandfitness.com\/gym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastpointehealthandfitness.com\/gym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastpointehealthandfitness.com\/gym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastpointehealthandfitness.com\/gym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastpointehealthandfitness.com\/gym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eastpointehealthandfitness.com\/gym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastpointehealthandfitness.com\/gym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastpointehealthandfitness.com\/gym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastpointehealthandfitness.com\/gym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastpointehealthandfitness.com\/gym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}