Have you become bored with your strength training routine? Are you no longer receiving the results you did when you first started? It can be easy to full into a rut, doing the same old routine day in and day out. To ensure that you see the most success when using strength equipment, we have shared 10 tips to help ensure that you are using it correctly and in accordance with your needs.
- List your goals and plan to achieve them over time – Try to set some goals for the first year of training and break it down into goals to achieve every 3 months or so.
- Don’t attempt too much too soon – Complete 4 to 12 weeks of basic training before beginning your routine. This will help to develop general conditioning and technique.
- Change up your exercises – Experts believe that you should change your routine every 4 to 6 weeks for maximum effectiveness. Choose exercises based on muscle groups.
- Change up the exercise order – Planning the order in which you do exercises is just as important as the exercises themselves. There are a few ways this can be achieved.
- Change the number of sets performed – Not all exercises require the same number of sets. Your goals will help you determine which are important and which aren’t.
- Vary your recovery time – Your greatest physical gains are made during recovery. Short periods are for building muscle endurance, long ones are for increasing strength and power.
- Change up the resistance load – There is no consensus on what combo of reps and weights will yield the best results. It should also be noted that your genetic makeup will play a role.
- Evaluate your progress every 4 to 8 weeks – Keep a detailed record of your workouts (strength equipment used, number of reps and sets, length of rest periods, etc).
- Be flexible with your training – Be prepared to change your routine to accommodate personal circumstances (such as illness, mood and soreness to name a few).
- Give purpose to every single workout – Carefully planning your strength training program will make each session more meaningful, exciting and effective.
By following each of the tips we have outlined above, we hope that you will see maximum success when using strength equipment. Whether you are training in a gym (by yourself or under the guidance of a personal trainer) or at home, it is important that you ensure equipment is used correctly and in accordance with your needs. Otherwise, you’ll fall into the same old routine rut.