Are you spending hours in the gym on a regular basis, but still not seeing the physical changes you want? If the answer is yes, you’ll want to keep reading. You might be doing all the right moves, but how you’re doing the moves may be keeping you in the same place. With one small update to your routine, you can shock your body out of complacency and into noticeable changes after all.
When you have to come up with your own workouts at the gym, if you’re like most people, you probably pick a couple of days to lift weights, and a couple of days to do steady cardio on a treadmill or elliptical.
There’s nothing wrong with this routine, except that it can bore you to death and it allows your body to adjust quickly to your repetitive workouts. This could cause you to hit a plateau rather quickly into your fitness journey and even turn you off from working out altogether.
To fix this negative cycle, the answer isn’t to throw away your entire routine. You may just need to try changing how you approach your workout. This can be done by transforming your mundane workouts into high-intensity interval training or “HIIT” workouts.
HIIT workouts are popular for a reason. Since you use a lot of energy with quick intervals of hard work and force your body to quickly get ready for the next move, you burn more fat during and after your workout.
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You also train your muscles to recover faster from the rigorous work, and you improve your endurance and your body’s capacity to keep producing the oxygen and energy to survive each HIIT workout. Your typical strength and steady-pace cardio sessions don’t even come close.
Luckily, you can turn any of your workouts into HIIT workouts to save time, increase the amount of energy you use and ultimately burn more fat during your workout.
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On your strength days, you can transform your normal routine into a HIIT session by making the moves time-based, rather than rep-based. The key will be picking up the pace with your strength routine. As such, you might want to drop the weight just a bit to be safe.
Below is an example of an upper-body strength HIIT circuit that you can repeat 3 or 4 times. Try to move quickly during each move, but be careful not to skimp on good form:
Alternating Bicep Curls: 45 seconds
Rest: 15 seconds
Push Up Rows: 45 seconds
Rest: 15 seconds
Overhead Tricep Extensions: 45 seconds
Rest: 15 seconds
Lying Chest Press: 45 seconds
Rest: 15 seconds
Shoulder “L” Raise: 45 seconds
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On your cardio days, you can mix up your favorite cardio moves on or off the machine to keep your heart pumping and incorporate more muscles than you would by running on the treadmill. Here’s an example of a cardio HIIT routine to try:
High Knees: 45 seconds
Rest: 10 seconds
Plank Jacks: 45 seconds
Rest: 10 seconds
Bicycle Crunches: 45 seconds
Rest: 10 seconds
Mountain Climbers: 45 seconds
repeat 1 time then move to the next circuit
Push-Ups: 45 seconds
Rest: 10 seconds
Skater Hops: 45 seconds
Rest: 10 seconds
Plank Up/Downs: 45 seconds
Rest: 10 seconds
Squat Jumps: 45 seconds
repeat 1 time then repeat the entire workout or stretch!
If you can turn 2 or more of your gym days into HIIT workouts, you should start to see noticeable changes in your body from the inside out.
Be sure to warm up for 10 minutes and cool down for at least 10 minutes after your workout to prevent injury and decrease your recovery time. And don’t just jump into workouts without first perfecting your form. There’s no shame in modifying or swapping out any move as your body needs!
Sharita Jennings is a fitness and travel enthusiast and creator of Get Fit Like That, LLC. She is a health policy attorney and ACE certified group fitness instructor and fitness nutrition specialist. She provides online fitness plans and leads group fitness classes in Washington DC. Check out her fitness tips and workouts at GetFitLikeThat.com.
