We’re all afflicted with shiny object (exercise variety) syndrome.
We see something fancy come across our feed or a celebrity hawking a new toy, we often think. “Oh, yeah, that looks cool. I want that.” Then, if your partner reads your thoughts as mine does, they’ll give you the NO look.
You know that look, correct?
It’s similar to social media fitness accounts & influencers. To get eyeballs on their stuff, they come up with exercise variations that boggle the mind. That looks cool, let’s give it a shot.
That is not a real reason for exercise variety, and you’ll realize that after trying it. At times, I’ll get bored with certain exercises, then either avoid them or doomscroll looking for something hip.
That’s not a real reason either. So, what are the real reasons for the exercise variety? Let’s dive in and explore the options.
4 Exercise Variety Reasons
Being bored or thinking it looks cool are not great reasons for changing things up, but these are.
It Hurts
The conventional deadlift was my favorite lift, but I hurt my back from poor form. Then I changed to the Sumo deadlift to ease lower back stress, but then the wider stance chewed up my hips, and my left hamstring said no. But due to pride and ego, I kept at it, thinking it would go away.
But it didn’t. Now, whenever I deadlift from the floor, the Trap Bar is my best friend, as it allows me to train without pain.
There’s a difference between the burning of the quads and the glutes during a Bulgarian Split Squat, and your right knee says not today. Once you know that difference, don’t train through it; change it.
On the flip side, you perform a certain exercise, but you’re just not feeling it. It feels way harder than it should be. Rather than ram a square peg into a round hole, choose a variation that feels good and doesn’t hurt.
Both are excellent reasons to vary exercise.
Muscle Balance
The Bulgarian Split Squat is a fantastic exercise for the quads and glutes, but over time, it can be tough on the inner thigh muscles. When the adductors are tight and sore, the fun stops. You need not only exercises that strengthen the adductors but also exercises that lengthen them.
Switching to a Cossack Squat or Side Lunge gives your adductors a break while still training your glutes and quads. Switching between these variations helps develop better muscle balance in the inner and outer thighs and will have you hating life less.
Issues can arise from training the chest more than the back, quads more than the glutes, or lats more than the upper back. But wait, there is more.
Your muscles don’t run just up and down; they run in all different directions and at all different angles. Changing the angle or body position during a biceps curl, for example, helps target muscle fibers that are less engaged with standard curls. That allows for enhanced muscle development and better flex times.
The same goes for many exercises. Changing the angle, stability needs, or body position allows you to hit all the muscle fibers in a particular body part. I like the term “the same” but “different.”
Avoiding Overuse Injuries
Chin-ups are awesome, but they’re tough on my elbows. If I perform them too often, my elbows say no. When you perform the same exercise over and over, you do get better at it, but sometimes it’s tough on a particular joint or muscle.
Then your body tells you, “Enough is enough.”
It’s similar to the “it hurts” reason, but it turns into a full-blown niggle. Experience is a great teacher here, especially when you recognize the discomfort and do nothing about it. It’s a painful but valuable lesson.
Plateaus
If you stop:
Adding muscle
Losing fat
Adding weight, reps, and sets
And you stay there for a few weeks, that’s a plateau. Although it’s not terrible, some panic and undergo a complete overhaul of their workouts to get the gain train moving again.
Or even worse, some quit.
Our bodies like balance, or homeostasis. Your body recognizes the 15th time you’ve performed the same workout and regains homeostasis faster. Next, a new stimulus is necessary to disrupt your body’s balance, prompting it to work harder to achieve homeostasis. That’s the sweet spot where gains happen.
Something as simple as the same movement, performed with a different exercise variation, can reignite your progress. Otherwise known as an exercise progression, because if it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.
Doesn’t that sound better than quitting?
Wrapping Up
The real reasons for variety in exercise are to prevent injury, quit, improve flextime, and prevent pain. Not because you’re bored or all the cool kids are doing it. Changing things up for the right reasons will help you enjoy your workouts and the results they give you.
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