2 More VITAL Training Principles – Variety & Recovery | Day #14 WellFit 365
Today’s video explains the final 2 training principles I wanted to cover:
Training Variety & Training Recovery.
Training Variety
What we want to be doing with our fitness training, whether it be weight training, cardio, or even flexibility training, is to be always shocking our body into making changes. We’re not going to achieve this if we continue to do the same program, same workout, same exercises over and over again for long periods of time.
Training variety ties in closely with the overload principle explained in a previous video. One of the best ways to overload your body is to perform new exercises.
We want to be moving our body in a variety of different directions – up, down, out & in, legs, upper body – we want to make sure we’re really working out the entire body.
Keep mixing it up different weight ranges, different reps etc.
This principle of training variety ties into is a concept called periodisation – That is, working in small blocks of time. 2 weeks, 4 weeks, maximum 6 weeks, working at a specific goal set. For instance, you might want to lose a certain amount of weight in that period of time, or lift a certain weight, or build a certain amount of muscle in that time.
TRY THIS:
Modify your training for a period of 4 weeks, then change it up, bring in new exercises & workouts for 4 weeks, change up, etc.
Apart from the physical benefits of changing up your workout routines, exercise variety also has huge psychological benefits. Mentally, what variety does is keeps your mind fresh and keeps you looking forward to going to the gym.
Training Recovery
This is without a doubt one of the most important principles to consider for anybody engaging in a fitness training program. It is also one of the most commonly neglected principles!
Training recovery is where a lot of people go wrong, especially when they’re super keen to get going. Many people can go flat out, pumping out 2 x two hour sessions a day and really ‘over-do it’ when they first start back at the gym. This can cause their body to burn out and even lead to injury.
You need to remember that when you’re in the gym, you are breaking your body down. You are tearing your muscles and putting your body under a considerable amount of stress. It is actually in your recovery period at home that your body makes those adaptations which produce the results you’re after. (More muscle mass, better definition, etc)
Just remember, sometimes that 2nd session for the day, or that extra half an hour in the gym, isn’t the best thing for you. You’re better off giving your body a chance to recover from your workout, rather than putting it through the added stress of another workout.
Rest and recovery doesn’t always mean you need to be totally inactive. Go for a walk, take a swim in the beach, play some light sport in the park. Just make sure that you’re not putting your body under too much stress that it can’t recover properly. It may seem like you’re doing the right thing to get results, but overdoing things can often cause more harm to the body than good!
