When you come to our private personal training studio in Bow, East London, you’ll see our clients doing a lot of different exercises. There’ll be variations on standard versions, for example we might replace a barbell with dumbbells or a kettlebell. We may even use resistance bands or bodyweight for a different challenge. The cardio will be mixed up - not two sessions are ever the same.
Where this variety may seem like it’s change for the sake of change, there are lots of good, credible reasons for changing exercise stimulus. In this article we’ll share some of our thinking behind exercise variety, why we put it into personal training client’s workouts and why you should be doing the same thing if you want to maximise your results. We’ll show you some of the research that shows how and why we should mix up our training.
Exercise variety is important for both fitness progression and injury prevention, so read this article and think about how you could switch up what you do and how you do it - your body will thank you!
Exercise Stimulation and Muscle Activation
One of the main reasons to switch up exercise technique and equipment is to provide a new challenge to the muscles. If we take this research from 2016, we see that different exercise technique and equipment results in a variation of muscle stimulation, which brings about different results. If we were to stick to the one way of doing things, we’d repeat movement patterns, never switch up stimulus and never make any meaningful progress beyond a certain point.
There’s also solid research that backs up the inclusion of iso lateral exercises (single limb) in training programmes. What the science shows is that exercises such as single leg squats and using dumbbells for upper body work can correct any strength imbalances between the sides, force additional muscle activation and also help people to come back from injury quicker. There’s also a strong suggestion that it could improve strength more than bi-lateral movements, as we’ve seen in this study.
Training at Different Speeds
As well as training with single limbs, there’s a lot of research that shows switching up the speed at which you train can have a beneficial effect on your physical capabilities. In a meta study concluded in 2017, researchers made the observation that ‘to optimise contralateral strength improvements, cross-training sessions should involve fast eccentric sets with moderate volumes and rest intervals.’
The benefits don’t just come from speeding up lifting either - one of the oldest tricks in bodybuilding is to increase muscle size by slowing down the tempo with which you lift, increasing the time under tension. This slow down (especially in the eccentric phase of a lift) is said to increase the muscle-building capability of the lifts, a claim which has been proven by the scientific research on the topic.
Mixing up Cardio Helps too
The benefits of a change don’t just exist in weight training either - switching the cardio exercise you do will help to prevent overuse injuries (too much of one thing has the potential to cause problems). It’s also a way to increase your calorie burn.
An old (1996) study suggested that treadmill running was the highest calorie burner when compared to an Airdyne, a cross-country skiing simulator, a cycle ergometer, a rowing ergometer and a stair stepper. Of course this research is to be taken with a pinch of salt, because movement efficiency etc plays a part in the energy output. The reason I’ve shared it though is because it shows not all cardio is created equal, so there’s value in the variety.
We encourage our clients to exercise outside of the studio too, because we see value in exercise variety. We also know that the movements they perform outside of their time with us will be different from those they’ll do with us, adding to their overall fitness.
Exercise Variety Helps Progression
Your body has a remarkable ability to adapt to a training stimulus - that’s how you get fitter and stronger, meaning we have to keep increasing workout intensities and the weights you lift . By mixing up training approaches, exercises, training angles, resistance methods and the like we’ll keep your body guessing, keep it stimulated and keep that progress going for the long term.
As you can see from the various studies we’ve shared in this article, there’s plenty of research that backs up our approach of mixing your training. We pride ourselves on our client results, which we achieve by listening to the science and adapting our training approaches accordingly. If you train with AdMac Fitness in our private personal training studio, you too will experience this training and make the fitness progress you want to!
If you’re looking for personal training in East London, get in touch!
At AdMac Fitness we’re not about fads, fashions and short term fixes. We want you to succeed properly over the long term, so with our help and advice you can get your fitness back on track! If you’d like us to help you, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!