Updating your workout routine can be a hassle, but it can also be a lot of fun. One of the big questions many of us face is how often you should make changes to your fitness plan. The answer? Roughly every 3 months.
Table of Contents
The Problem:
There are a few reasons that people struggle to update their workout routine:
- A lot of us find comfort in routines and changing our routines forces us to step outside our comfort zones.
- New exercises and equipment can be intimidating.
- Some of us aren’t comfortable updating our own workouts because we simply lack the knowledge or experience.
- Some of us hit plateaus in our fitness progress, which can be discouraging, which also leads to a lack of motivation to make changes.
- Many of us don’t have a lot of free time and reworking our fitness plans can seem like one too many things.
- Finally, some of us are influenced by our workout buddies, gym culture, or fitness trends.
Understanding these factors and keeping an eye out for others is important because identifying specific barriers is the only way to overcome them.
The Solution:
Make a commitment to update your workout routine once a season or every three months.
Committing to a seasonal update undercuts the above issues and provides a slew of benefits. Let’s take a closer look.
The Benefits of Updating Your Workout Routine:
Updating your workout routine every three months can really enhance your non-sedentary lifestyle. A great strategy is to update your workout routine with the change in the seasons.
You can get a free seasonal workout planner here.
This planner is great for people who are fitness junkies and those of us who just want a little more movement in our life. If you’re the kind of person who needs flexibility in your planning, but also needs to have something written down to stay motivated, this planner is for you.
Why seasonal updates? Two reasons
First, it’s easier to remember. Aim for updating your workouts every March, June, September, and December.
Second, for a lot of us, new seasons means new activities. If you live someplace with with wet springs, you might not want to ride your bike during those three months. Instead, you could swap out bike rides for using a rowing machine at the gym.
Let’s look at an example:
I personally use the seasonal update strategy for my workout routines. I break my workouts into two major types updates: activity updates and exercise modifications. Below you’ll see a breakdown of my summer and fall workout routines. This is a broad overview rather than a microscopic look at individual workout days
Summer Workout Routine Overview:
- Swim for distance. This usually includes technique drills and a heavy focus on freestyle.
- Biking outside
- Running hills and hiking
- Weights and mobility
Fall Workout Routine Overview:
- Rock climbing (indoor)
- Running intervals (treadmill or indoor track)
- Swimming for speed. This usually involves a mix of all four competitive swim strokes, with a focus on butterfly.
- Weights and mobility with a change in the individual exercises. For example, if I did burpees over the summer, I might change to a HIIT squat routine for the fall.
My summer routine allows me to maximize being outside, which I love, while my fall routine helps me to maximize social connections through rock climbing and gym buddy workouts. Both workout seasons line up with my personal goals and only include activities and exercises that I enjoy or make me feel strong and powerful.
But what are the real benefits of seasonal workout updates?
First and foremost, updating your workout routine regularly will help you avoid plateaus. Introducing new exercises or variations will keep your body challenged, which promotes both maintenance of your fitness and growth in your strength, endurance, or musculature.
Second, it prevents boredom, which is hugely important. Our brains avoid activities that we dislike and most of us dislike being both bored and physically uncomfortable. Repeating the same workouts in an endless loop can decrease motivation and consistency.
While it can be a bit intimidating to make changes to a routine we find comfortable, it actually boosts your motivation to keep things fresh on a semi-regular basis.
Third, lack of variation in your exercises can lead to muscle imbalances which can increase the risk of injury. Regularly changing your routine helps ensured a balanced approach to your development and flexibility. This significantly boosts your longevity.
Fourth, you’ll stimulate different muscle groups. This means you target different muscle groups or stimulate them in new ways, which promotes more comprehensive muscle development and overall strength. If you’re aiming for functional fitness and longevity, this is key.
Fifth, you’ll improve your skill and technique both in terms of depth and breadth. This helps you feel more confident in your workouts and is particularly advantageous if you’re interested in activities that require specific skills or if you play sports, even recreationally.
Sixth, this improves your adaptability and resilience. Exposing yourself to various workout styles helps you build a more adaptable and resilient body. This is why cross-training is such an important part of organized athletics. Swimmers should lift weights and runners should swim. Often doing more of one thing isn’t as beneficial as branching out a bit. And the more you increase your knowledge of different skills and techniques, the more you’ll be able to individualize your plans to meet your goals.
For example, I like to do sprint triathlons. It’s important that I have a strong core for all three events, but especially the bike and the swim, so I do a lot of ab exercises in the lead-up to an event. A stronger core protects my spine and enables faster movement over a longer period of time. The more events I’ve prepared for, the more I’ve learned about core strength and development. In other words, I’ve grown more adaptable and resilient in a way that is specifically matched to my goals.
Seventh, you’ll boost your metabolism. Changing your workout routine can keep your metabolism guess about by challenging your body in new ways. This not only helps your body regulate energy, but also helps to fight metabolic diseases. You can read more about that here.
Eighth, you can more easily identify and then address weaknesses without losing consistency. If you notice during the summer that your shoulders are a little more vulnerable than you would like, you can add shoulder specific workouts to your fall updates. Updating your workout routine allows you to focus on building a more well-rounded approach to movement over the short AND long-term.
Ninth, there are myriad social and mental benefits. Trying a new routine can provide opportunities to meet new people or expand current friendships. Waterfall hikes over the summer are one of my favorite fitness activities and doing them with family, like my mom or cousins, makes them infinitely more enjoyable and deepens those bonds.
Joining classes or working with a personal trainer puts you with people who are like minded and supportive. And the mental stimulation of learning new exercises keeps you young and connects your brain to your movement, making you more conscious of, and at home in, your body.
Conclusion
It can feel overwhelming to start a fitness routine, so sometimes the idea of changing something you’ve built is just too much. On top of that, a lot of us don’t have a ton of free time, making it tricky to find a moment to update our workout plan.
But you don’t have to constantly make changes to get great results. Updating your workout plan once a season, or every three months, is plenty. That’s only four updates a year and you’ll still get huge payoffs. Try to pick your favorite activities for each season. These should also be activities that align with your goals for best results.
By making a commitment to revisit your goals and workout routine, you’ll bust through boredom and plateaus, and live a longer happier life.