Hi there,

Hope every­one is well and enjoy­ing this final stretch of sum­mer. I can’t believe the kids are already back to school and return­ing once again, to the old routine.

Speak­ing of rou­tine, I wanted to talk a bit about the impor­tance of chang­ing up your work­outs and get­ting out of your train­ing rut. I for one, can often feel burnt out or unin­spired with my work­outs, unless I change them up every once in a while. I typ­i­cally alter my resis­tance train­ing pro­grams when the sea­sons change.

Sum­mer time, I’m all about get­ting lean and stay­ing lean so my work­outs reflect that. What I mean is that I train with slightly less weight, less rest time between sets and often, will per­form full body work­outs instead of the tra­di­tional splits that I fol­low over the fall and win­ter months. My warm weather work­outs ide­ally main­tain an ele­vated heart rate which pro­motes fat burn­ing and max­i­mum calo­rie expen­di­ture. I’m not focused on mus­cle build­ing at this time; that comes over the cold win­ter months.

Once the weather cools off, I begin to increase my weights, and change my train­ing back to splits. A split is when we divide the body/​muscle groups into sep­a­rate train­ing days so that we can ded­i­cate an entire 45 – 60 min to that par­tic­u­lar mus­cle group(s). For exam­ple, I like to group back and shoul­ders together and bi’s and tri’s on their own, while both chest and legs require sep­a­rate train­ing days. They’re big mus­cle groups and need alot of attention.

Yes, this type of train­ing requires fre­quent vis­its to the gym, but it also yields great results. I per­form 4 solid work­ing sets, per­form­ing any­where from 8 – 12 reps with about one to one and a half min­utes of rest between sets. We’re in the build­ing phase here, adding weight with each set, so your body needs time to recover and pre­pare for the next load.

So, if you’re feel­ing bored and unen­thu­si­as­tic about your work­outs or you’re not see­ing the results you’d hoped for, give this train­ing reg­i­men a try. It’s not easy but then again, noth­ing worth hav­ing, is easy. Don’t let any­one tell you that it’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.…because that’s just not true!!

Remem­ber, if you can’t do it alone, I’m always here to help you reach your goals.

Next post, is all about cardio!

Good luck!!