Five Ways To Add Variety To Your Fat Loss Weight Lifting Workout
By: Shannon Clark
If there’s one thing that hits almost all of us at some point in time and proves to be extremely frustrating it’s getting stuck in a plateau. Your motivational levels might have been so high but then you just stop seeing results. This causes most of us to back away from our workouts as we see our desire to actually get into the gym shrinking down significantly.
Therefore, your job is to find ways to change up your workout so that this plateau is avoided and you keep seeing the results you’re looking for.
Below are five simple methods you can use to help change around your fat loss weight lifting workout to not only increase you interest in actually getting into that gym in the first place, but also increase the results you see from each and every workout.
Keep in mind that you should always be changing some aspect of your workout program every 3-4 weeks. This doesn’t have to be a major overhaul, just something that keeps the body stimulated.
Switch Your Grip
The first way to decrease the chances of a plateau with your weight training program is to switch up your grip. For example, if you typically are doing bench press with an underhand grip (the normal method), try using an overhand grip. Note that when doing this it will really hit the tricep muscles much more and weight will likely go down – which is fine, the point is to stimulate the body differently, which you are doing.
This can be done with bicep curls, various tricep exercises, pull-ups (or assisted pull-ups), lat-pull-downs, and so on.
Vary Your Base Of Support
The second way you can add some variety to your weight lifting workout is to change your base of support. If you’re normally performing your exercises sitting in the seat of a weight machine, it’s time to change that.
You can move your exercise to an exercise ball – for instance, doing chest press? Try dumbbell chest presses on an exercise ball.
Or, if you typically sit down while you do dumbbell shoulder presses, start doing the exercise while standing. This will call the abs into play more giving you an ab workout at the same time. Again, switching up the normal manner you complete the exercise is the single best thing to do to avoid a plateau.
Swap In Some Single Limb Workout
Single limb work is one of my absolute favorite ways to boost the intensity of a workout, challenge the body in new ways, and really help you see faster results.
The most effective single limb exercise?
Split squats. I love, love, love them! If there is one exercise I would recommend you start doing, this is it.
Some of you may want to start doing single shoulder presses. Or, maybe you’d like to change your barbell bicep curls to single arm bicep curls instead.
All are effective ways to progress with your program. Keep in mind too that if you happen to have a muscular imbalance, single limb work can help you with this as well.
Try Drop Sets
Most people at one point or another have heard of drop sets. Along with drop sets, another effective workout technique that can boost your results are drop sets.
What drop sets are is where you perform an exercise at a given weight – say a 100 pound bench press.
After you do 8 reps (or however many sets you are scheduled to do), drop the weight down to 90 and crank out another 8 reps.
Once those 8 reps are done, drop that weight again – to 80 pounds this time, and try another 8.
Keep dropping the weight until you cannot go any longer. Keep in mind with this that there may be a point where you can’t do a full 8 reps and that’s fine. Just do as many as you can do. You’ll still be pushing the body past a level its used to – and getting results.
Reverse Your Order
The fifth way to prevent a plateau and boost the results from your fat loss weight lifting workout is to reverse the order of the exercises you’re going to perform. With this point, it’s not something you want to do every workout since there are basic physiological reasons why you should be placing certain exercises earlier on in the workout.
But every once in a while, reverse it. We’re not talking about doing this for weeks on end, just a few workout sessions. It’ll shock the body and help you bust past a plateau that may be occurring.
So be sure you keep these tips in mind. There is really nothing more frustrating than getting stuck in a training plateau so take steps starting immediately to prevent this. You’ll be happy you did.
Do you have any tips on what’s worked for you to get past a workout plateau?
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