For decades, fitness experts around the world have been debating whether or not you should mix up your workouts. Those who are in favor of it claim that by mixing up your workouts, you’re challenging your muscles in new ways and forcing them to adapt and grow in response. Those against it say that the most important thing is consistency, and mixing up your routine ruins that consistency.
What do I say? Well, I don’t claim to be a fitness expert, and I only speak from my personal experience. So what have I found from my personal experience? That everyone is different, and it depends on the circumstance.
In general, I think that if you want to meet any kind of long term goal, consistency is crucial. If every time you walk into the gym you’re going to be doing something else, it becomes impossible to settle into a solid routine, and you’ll get nowhere. At the same time, most people go crazy if they have the exact same routine for months on end with no change, and quickly get demotivated.
The answer then becomes that the important thing in working out and achieving long term goals is knowledge of self. If you’re the kind of person that needs a rigid, unchanging schedule, then you probably shouldn’t be changing up your workouts. On the other hand, if you’re the kind of person that needs to constantly be doing new things, maybe every couple of weeks you need to mix up your workouts with something unique.
One of the great things about working out is that you’ll find out things about yourself that you might not have learned otherwise. In general, you may have thought of yourself as someone with a very rigid lifestyle and then find when you’re working out that 2 weeks in you need to try something else to keep motivated.
Alternatively, in general you may have a more creative and spontaneous personality, but when it comes to working out, you need a very disciplined regimen for success. Whatever it is, it’s dependent on you and no fitness expert can really give you the answer.
The most important thing? To just do it, and find out. There’s no good substitute for real experience, and sometimes you need to get your hands dirty before you can really find your rhythm.
Rafi Bar-Lev is a former combat medic and the founder of Passionate Fitness.
