Outdoor and Sports Blog

Val Freedman usually couldn’t wait for her lunchtime break so she could dash from work to the nearby gym and get her heart pumping.

But last year the gym rearranged its group fitness schedule and hired some new instructors. Freedman, who describes herself as a creature of habit, wasn’t enamoured with the new lineup and suddenly fell into a fitness funk.

“A couple of things I’d liked doing had changed and I was left doing the things that were more mundane,” says Freedman, owner of an IT staffing firm in Toronto. “It became very boring and unmotivating. I still went (to the gym), but I really wasn’t liking it and I was dragging myself there.”

Rather than give up, she decided to change it up. She began working out in the evening, tried some new classes and invited friends to join her. Eventually she got her groove back and now makes sure to change things up whenever possible to avoid falling into a rut.

Getting into a fitness rut can suck the motivation out of even the most dedicated athlete. When muscles stop bulging or those favourite jeans still don’t fit after weeks of sweating it out, frustration sets in and many people start slacking on their fitness routine. But by changing it up, it’s possible to ditch the boredom and take exercising to the next level.

“Whether it’s a marriage or whether it’s your workout routine, if you start to get a little blade you need to shake it up,” says Jacqueline Walters, vice-president of group fitness at Extreme Fitness in Toronto.

When the plateau hits, she says, people typically lose enthusiasm and motivation and either “sleepwalk through their workouts” or stop exercising entirely. Usually her clients feel guilty because they know they shouldn’t give up.

They also worry if they take a break their muscles will be sore when they get back in the swing. The best course, she says, is find new ways to generate interest in your gym routine.

“You just need something to spark your excitement or rejuvenate yourself, to energize and re-motivate,” she says.

Ron McPhee, a fitness instructor in Edmonton, says after six to eight weeks of doing the same exercise the body has adapted to accommodate the exercises and doesn’t respond as much as it did at the beginning.

“The body is always trying to get into a rhythm, so when you shake up the rhythm that’s when you can get more results,” he says.

McPhee teaches total body workouts, with his one-hour classes focusing on upper and lower body, core and cardio. But after a couple of months, he urges clients to switch to something else such as boot camp or interval training.

He advises doing that for two weeks to “shock the body” and then return to a cardio/strength combo for another six to eight weeks.

Richelle Love, a Calgary-based certified triathlon coach, says if you typically like step classes, try a Thai boxing class. If you’re a runner and it’s snowy outside, replace a long run with snowshoeing or cross-country skiing.

Company motivates, whether it’s a friend, a group, or a personal trainer. It’s hard to maintain focus alone, “which is why all professional athletes have coaches,” says Walters.