Dude, You Threw Off My Grove

I've decided to go back through my previous post and clean them up a little. You may have noticed my annoying little habit of staying focused on the point at hand at the expense of other possibly useful information (usually, found in brackets like this with a promise to explain it latter). So, I'm going back over them and posting the other (possibly useful) information.

The first I want to cover comes from “Dumbells - Yeah, I'm Talking To You." We talked about the importance of both aerobic and anaerobic exercise. At some point, in my oh-so-charming-way, I offhandedly mentioned the importance of changing the types of exercise you do – not just switching back and forth from one type of aerobic exercise to one type of anaerobic exercise.

Well, besides the simple (and slightly obvious) reason of it helping you avoid getting bored of your exercise, there is also a very good physical reason for it. Plateaus (did I spell that right? Hmmm, just looks odd – weird word). That's right plateaus (seriously, looks odd doesn't it?). If you've ever dieted before or tried to achieve an exercise goal before, you know that that six letter word is really a four letter word (so to speak).

Nothing can suck the drive and focus right out of you like hitting a week long plateaus (does somebody wanna' look that up ? 'Cause it still looks wrong to me). Repeating the same exercises over and over, while probably giving you early success, is a sure fire way to hit plateaus (if for no other reason than getting bored). Really, though, it makes sense. Most of us who are overweight are also under-exercised. So, we work the same muscles over and over and produced pretty good (and sort of instant) results. However, there is a point at which those particular muscles become reasonably well worked and the improvements on them and our added weight loss due to new muscle begins to decline and eventually level off.

Like I've mentioned before, that Darwin was on to something. Our bodies do adapt and remarkably quickly I might add. Our body's systems (muscular, cardio-vascular) adapt to training routines faster than you might think. So, don't let your routine be...well, so routine. Mix it up. Exercise different muscles and give them all a chance to perform (that means you'll be making even MORE fat burners!).

So, while many of us like routine, when it comes to loosing weight, it is not your friend. So get out of that groove and and rotate your exercises to maximize your results.

Oh, and two of those four pound I gained are already gone - nice!

Keep at it – you can do this! And let me hear from you.