I taught HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) a few nights ago and announced to my class that we were going to progress our moves by making them harder. There were nervous smiles and audible groans! I continued on by saying that it's important to make your workout progressively harder in order to improve your strength, stamina, endurance.....and to just keep things fresh. We want to keep our bodies guessing, right??
I have decided that when I teach something like HIIT, I will keep the same base moves for the month. We will change the order sometimes, but I want my regulars to see how they can improve from week to week. Maybe they do 6 burpees in 30 seconds one week and the next week they do 8 or 10 because they are improving!! I add "goodies" or "improvements" to make it harder, like instead of a traditional burpee (sans pushup), you do a burpee with a pushup or a burpee with a double kick out before you jump up. Or, rather than just plank jacks the whole interval, do plank jacks with some knee-ups (jack, jack, knee, knee). Get it? Always find a way to make your base workouts more challenging. Then, change it all up after a month and try some new moves and make your work/rest timing harder.
I encouraged my class to at least try one rep of the harder move. I want them to work at their level with their choices, but at least try one harder move because who knows? They may surprise themselves at what they can do!! If they can't do it this week, maybe they can next week. I was proud of myself for doing all of the harder modifications during class (because, YES, I do everything along with the class), but I was a hurting unit the next day! I imagine everyone else was sore too.
If there is one thing that you learn from me and from my training philosophy it's this: Always find a way to make your workout more challenging. It will keep things fresh, and it will change your body. Next time you work out, think to yourself, "How can I make it harder?"
