The Importance of Exercise Variations

Exercise is a crucial part of leading a healthy and active lifestyle. Whether you’re building strength, increasing endurance, or improving overall health, the amount of exercise variations you perform can make a significant impact on progress. Here are some reasons why incorporating different styles of exercises is an important part of your fitness journey!

1. Target Different Muscles

Exercise variations can be used to target several muscle groups and work them in different ways. For example, squats primarily work the glutes, quads and hamstrings, while lunges work the same muscle groups but also recruit the calves and gluteus medius and require a higher level of coordination. Performing a variety of exercises ensures that you are targeting all the necessary muscle groups and avoiding muscle imbalances.

2. Reduce the Risk of Injury

Repeating the same exercise over and over again can lead to overuse injuries. By changing up the type of exercise you do, you can reduce the risk of overuse injuries and prevent repetitive stress on specific muscles and joints.

3. Increase Overall Fitness

Adding new exercises can improve overall fitness by challenging different aspects of physical fitness such as strength, endurance, flexibility and balance. By working on improving each aspect of physical fitness, you focus on your holistic health.

4. Accommodate Different Fitness Levels

Exercise variations can always be utilized to accommodate different fitness levels. For example, a beginner who is looking to do squats would start with dumbbell goblet squats. As they become stronger and more comfortable with the exercise, they can progress to barbell squats which require more stability/mobility. Additionally, each exercise can be modified to accommodate injuries or physical limitations.

5. Prevent Boredom and Plateaus

For many of us, performing the same exercises every day can become tedious and boring which leads to a lack of motivation to continue. Changing up the exercises in your routine can break up the monotony and keep things fresh and exciting!. Additionally, performing other exercises can prevent plateaus (a period of time when your body no longer responds to your fitness routine) by challenging your muscles in new ways, leading to continued progress and growth.

The library of exercises in the fitness world is extensive. There are millions of moves and each person’s needs and preferences are different. Your trainers can help you navigate these and continuously update your program to keep things fresh and effective.

By: Coach Nick Pitts