Freshen Up Your Workout Routine

Spring is just beginning to make its appearance, and with it comes the annual desire to freshen up stale routines and living environments we were cooped up in during the colder winter months.

Repeating the same workout routine can not only get a little boring at times, but it can also cause you to plateau – meaning you are no longer gaining the same strength or endurance benefits. To push through a plateau and freshen up your routine easily, look at adding variation to the exercises you have already mastered.

Here are a few of our favorite ways to keep workouts feeling fresh:

Lunges

Lunges are a great foundational lower body exercise that help strengthen your quadriceps and glutes. Traditional front lunges can feel repetitive at times, so look at adding variation through backward, side or jump lunges to engage different muscle groups in your lower body.

Planks

Once you’ve started to master a traditional plank and can easily hold the position for longer than 30 seconds, look at upping the difficulty by adjusting your hand position or lifting one of your legs. This added challenge will engage new core muscles, helping you avoid a plateau.

Pushups

Pushups are a key component of many workout routines. You can do them anywhere and they don’t require any equipment, making them a great exercise to do while travelling. Like planks, you can add a lot of variation to your pushup by simply changing your hand position. Traditionally you keep hands shoulder length apart, but by bringing your hands closer together or positioning them outside of your shoulders, you engage different muscles in your arms, shoulders and upper back.

Ab Exercises

Many of us are very familiar with traditional ab exercises, like the crunch, but did you know that by adjusting your body position slightly, you can engage completely different muscle groups when doing a crunch? It’s true! By simply leaning both legs to one side, being sure to keep your shoulders flat, you engage your oblique muscles, which don’t get as much attention during a traditional crunch. Check out the video above for even more variations you can try during your next core workout.

Burpees

If you feel you’ve mastered burpees, first off – congratulations. Burpees are an amazing calorie burning exercise that allow you to work your whole body at once, and no one can deny that they are difficult. However, if you are looking to challenge yourself even further, there are some simple additions you can make to take things to the next level. For example, adding a jump at the end of your squat is a sure fire way to add some killer burn to your lower body. Check out the video above to see how you can spice up your next burpee workout.