We are already a week into Fall and it’s time to SPICE up your workouts!! Doing the same style of workouts every time can get boring and repetitive, so REP Physio is here to help you FALL back in love with your work out routine!
A great way to change up your exercise routine is to change the style of workouts that you’re doing. Some great options that you have are: Tabata, HIIT, reps/sets, or circuit training!
Tabata-style training is a timed ratio of work to rest. It is an awesome way to work out without having to count how many reps you are doing! It makes it way easier to focus on the exercises, and you can adjust the ratio’s to just about anything! A typical Tabata cycle is usually 30 seconds long (20 seconds of work, and 10 seconds of rest), but you can change that to 1-minute cycles, or really anything that works best for you! For example, when doing a Tabata workout, pick 1-4 exercises to focus on and pick a work:rest ratio (ie. 20:10 or 40:20). If I pick the exercise bicep curls and the work:rest ratio 40:20, then I would do bicep curls for 40 seconds, rest for 20 seconds, and then repeat that cycle for usually 8 rounds (rounds can be adjusted as well).
HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training and is a great way to get your cardiovascular system working to another level! HIIT workouts include a high-intensity interval (usually 30 seconds to 3 minutes) that includes exercises that increase your heart rate and makes you sweat, followed by a period of recovery of around the same time. This strategy allows you for more work and less rest and can save time while also helping you burn more calories!
Reps/sets is the most popular way to work out and is probably the type of workout that you already do! But if not, it’s another great option to organize your exercise routine! Reps are the number of times you do a certain exercise. Sets are the number of times you do a certain amount of reps of that same exercise. So if you do 10 squats, you are doing 10 reps of squats. If you do those 10 squats 3 times, then you’ve done 3 sets of squats! The recommended amount of reps/sets to use are as followed: for strength (6-10 reps/3-4 sets, more weight), for endurance (15-20 reps/4-5 sets, less weight), and for speed/power (3-5 reps/3-5 sets, no weight).
And finally, circuit training! A circuit is a great way to speed up your workout and make it more interesting and fast-paced! It is very similar to working out using reps/sets, but instead of focusing on one exercise, you combine a group of exercises into a circuit or a superset! This can look a number of different ways, but will usually consist of 2+ exercises (even up to 10+ exercises!) that you do in succession of one another. So, if I had 4 exercises to do, I would do one set of exercise 1, followed by one set of exercise two, one set of exercise three, and one set of exercise 4. Then that would be repeated how ever many times you want! This is a great way to keep a nice flow to your work out, and have less rest in between sets!
Hopefully these ideas can help you SPICE up your fall workouts! Email alex@repphysio.ca if you want any more ideas for a great fall work out!
