If you workout regularly, chances are you already have your routine. And we all love our routine. We do the same exercises week after week and wonder why we are not getting the results we would like.

The flaw in this thinking is that as we do the same workouts again and again, our bodies adapt and the workouts become easier over time. Eventually your workouts stop challenging you, and you will hit a fitness plateau. To make sure your body is constantly challenged it is important to have variety in your workout. You want to make sure you are covering the four main elements of fitness: Cardiovascular Conditioning, Strength Training and Toning, Core Stability and Stretching

  1. Cardiovascular Conditioning: Get your heart pumping! Classes like TurboKick, HIIT and Zumba are great ways to get that heart rate going. For the best fitness results you need to vary your cardio routine. These classes will all get your heart rate going, but in very different ways, so mix them up!

  2. Strength Training and Toning: When it comes to strength training, it is much harder to build muscles if you don’t have variety. If all you do is lift free weights or do the same machines over and over, your muscles adapt. Instead of repeating the same exercises week after week, take Barre one week to tone muscles with body weight training, and then Absolute Strength to really lift heavy and increase your muscular endurance.
  3. Core Stability: Core exercises that work the pelvis, low back and stomach are key to good fitness. Often, we spend the last five minutes of a class on our core, but our core is our powerhouse. Core strength is the foundation of Pilates. Those who really succeed in achieving overall fitness learn to use their core muscles, but in Pilates, strengthening your core is taught from the beginning.
  4. Stretching/Flexibility: Stretching and Flexibility are often overlooked, but are the cornerstone of a complete fitness regime. If you lack flexibility, your range of motion will be limited. That limited range of motion, will ultimately limit how strong and healthy your muscles and joints can be. No matter if you choose Asana Yoga and its focus on breath synchronization and continuous flow of positions or combining the muscle-sculpting benefits of Pilates with the strength through PiYo, you need to dedicate more than five minutes a day to stretching.

It may seem like a daunting task to find that much variety, but the great thing is that you can find ALL of those elements in Group Fitness classes at The nZone. Click here to see all them, and start planning how you will add variety to your fitness routine today!

If you have a favorite workout variety that you do, share it with us below. We’d love to see what you do to spice up your workouts and include different workouts and routines.