"Boost Your Workouts with 15 Expert Tips for Maximum Effectiveness"

Consistency is key when it comes to maintaining a workout routine. However, experts suggest that changing things up is also essential to challenge the body and achieve physical and mental goals. Fitness experts incorporate this advice into their personal routines to get the most out of their investment. The principle of progressive overload, which essentially means challenging the body in new ways, can lead to adaptation and growth. Adding additional weight, trying new exercises or unstable elements are great ways to apply this principle to every workout. Casey Holgan, a certified strength and conditioning specialist, also notes the importance of changing exercise variables like sets, reps, time, duration, and intensity. He suggests that consistency is key, but you should adjust the workout to fit your schedule.

To maximize benefits in common workouts like running, boxing, barre, and weight training, some pro-approved tweaks can help. For weightlifters interested in building upon their PRs, increasing AMRAP and boosting strength will need to add weight or increase reps. The National Academy of Sports Medicine suggests increasing the weight up to 10% each week. Alternatively, increasing rep count can also help. To elevate weight training beyond this, you can incorporate supersets or drop sets. Supersets can be done with either complementary or unrelated muscle groups. Drop sets allow clients to lift heavy weight but to drop down to something more comfortable. By applying these tips, fitness enthusiasts can push themselves beyond their limits while still remaining safe and effective.

Boxing classes are a great way to engage your entire body. As a mix of strength and cardio, it can challenge both your physical and mental ability. If you're new to boxing, it's recommended to start off mastering the basics and then gradually increase the intensity. Incorporating hand weights, even just one pound in each hand, can significantly increase the difficulty. Additionally, focusing on your legs by using resistance bands around them can further increase the intensity. After a boxing session, you can finish off with a 15-20 minute full-body strength session to increase endurance.

To increase endurance and reduce the risk of injury while running, it's essential to have specific, action-oriented goals in mind. Every run should have a purpose. That purpose may include longer distances, slow steady-mile pace runs, short speed runs, or 30-minute sessions focusing on intervals and hills. It is recommended to track your heart rate or monitor your effort levels to gauge your energy expenditure during runs. It's also crucial to have a variety of runs throughout the week and to incorporate weight training into your routine for better results.

Alternating between low-intensity and high-intensity days can give your body time to recover and gain strength. It's crucial to manipulate your workout plan to fit your schedule to increase adherence to the routine. Finally, measuring your rate of perceived exertion on a scale of zero to 10 can help ensure your workout's effectiveness.

Prioritizing RPE is especially crucial to have an effective HIIT session. “A lot of people don't understand that in order for it to be high intensity on that RPE scale, it has to be at a seven or a nine. Essentially what I mean by that, is I want to be at about 70 to 90 percent of my max heart rate ... If you are not tracking your heart rate, you can measure this by monitoring your breath,” he explains. “This means it should be pretty difficult for you to hold a conversation. Maybe you can say one or two words if there's someone standing next to you, but you have to stop, catch your breath, and try to repeat what you were gonna say.”

If a juicy flow or thigh-shaking barre class is your workout of choice, you may think that there are limited ways to switch things up. Incorrect! While these types of workouts tend to depend on the teacher and the class you attend, there are various ways to make your workout (and your time spent in class) more efficient.

To boost the benefits of your barre or yoga and yoga-sculpt classes, Holgan suggests introducing ankle weights as well as hand weights or wraps. “I truly believe that as long as you can stay consistent, as well as measure and track your progress and continuously introduce a new stressor — something that the body will have to recover from — it will make the workout more effective,” he says.

Once you’ve mastered your stationary holds and breathwork with your yoga poses, Holgan says aim to “figure out ways to manipulate movements in order to make it more challenging,” he says. “Whether that is balancing on one leg instead of two, or focusing more on engaging more of your core perhaps by offsetting your bird dog by extending your arm and your leg as far as you can go.”

Holgan also notes the pros of using yoga in place of or in addition to foam rolling as a form of active recovery because, “when we're doing something super low intensity or we're increasing blood flow, oxygen and nutrients to the muscles, it's always gonna help the recovery stage,” he explains. His suggestion: “Yes, you can lie on the floor and take a foam roller to roll your back muscles to increase shoulder mobility and that's really, really beneficial,” he says. “But if you do some form of a yoga pose where you’re moving through and using those same back muscles, then you’re getting strength through that mobility and it's going to add more of a practical component to my movement.”