Consistency is key when it comes to getting in shape. After all, you can’t get fit if you don’t put the work in at the gym.
But are there any benefits to doing the same workout day-in and day-out? Some influencers say there are – claiming that doing the exact same workout for years has been the key to their fitness success.
While this might sound appealing to those of us who have trouble sticking to a routine, the truth is if we don’t challenge our body enough, eventually this strategy could actually work against our aim to get in shape.
In order to improve your fitness, you need to disrupt your body’s homeostasis. This is the process by which living organisms maintain a stable internal environment despite changes in our external conditions.
In relation to exercise and fitness, the external condition could be lifting weights at the gym. This puts stress on the body, altering our internal environment – and thereby disrupting homeostasis.
Stress is what causes our body to respond and adapt. When the stressor that disrupts this homeostasis is exercise, the response is fatigue due to the way it disrupts our normal, internal environment.
The more stress the exercise places on our body, the more fatigue it induces. Only once the stress is removed – for example, when we take a rest day between workouts – does the fatigue start to dissipate.
Fatigue is actually the secret to physical adaptation. The greater the fatigue, the greater the potential for adaptation and the more your fitness will improve. On the other hand, if the exercise stressor does not disturb homeostasis, you won’t become fatigued enough to see any physical adaptations.
Just be careful not to fatigue yourself too much, as this can lead to poorer performance and potential for illness.
When we physiologically adapt, we adjust our homeostatic “set point”. This means the minimum amount of stress our body needs to induce a fatigue response increases. So, in order to continue improving our fitness levels, we need to start changing up our workouts to continue causing our body stress and fatigue. This principle is known as “progressive overload”.
There are three basic ways progressive overload is achieved: increasing the intensity of the exercise, increasing the frequency of training sessions, or increasing the duration of each workout.
The principles of biological adaptation are a complex intermix of these components – although workout intensity is considered the primary driver of adaptation. To increase the intensity of your workouts, you can either increase the demands of the exercise or manipulate the recovery period – such as by decreasing recovery time between workouts.
Just remember it’s during the recovery period, not the actual workout, that adaptations take place. So, if you do increase the intensity of your workouts, aim to make them shorter overall to avoid exhaustion.
It’s also important that you don’t do too much too soon. You don’t need to make each workout progressively harder. Depending on your fitness level, you might only need to bump up the intensity of your workouts once every four to eight weeks.
A word of caution, though. Simply doing high-intensity exercise is not the answer to improving your fitness and health. You need to do a combination of low-, moderate- and higher-intensity exercise to foster a range of physiological adaptations.
Consistent workouts
So, what would happen if you maintained the same workout routine day-in, day-out?
There would of course be an initial period of adaptation due to the new challenges being placed on your body. But unless progressive overload is applied, these changes will only ever at best be maintained. And in some instances, it could even lead to a loss in fitness gains – eventually bringing us back to where we started.
There are also the psychological benefits to using a more progressive approach to training. People often stop exercising over time due to various personal and environmental factors – such as a loss of motivation if you’re no longer interested or enjoying your workouts. Incorporating new exercises or adding variety to familiar routines are great ways to help you stay motivated and enjoying your workouts.
While sticking with the same workout might seem the easiest way of staying physically active, it could work against you in the long run. If you want to keep fit, change up your workouts every 4-6 weeks (either by boosting the intensity or adjusting the exercises), do a mix of different activities (including weight training and cardio), and keep track of your fitness – so you know when it’s time to change your workout again.
Dan Gordon is Professor of Exercise Physiology, Anglia Ruskin University.
Jonathan Melville is PhD Candidate, Sport and Exercise Science, Anglia Ruskin University
Ruby Cain is PhD Candidate, Anglia Ruskin University.
This article was first published on The Conversation.
