At first the results come quickly.
"When people start working out, they'll see dramatic changes in the first six weeks to three months," says Douglas Brooks, an exercise physiologist and personal trainer in Mammoth Lakes, Calif. "But the reality is that once your body gets accustomed to your routine, you're going to get diminishing returns for the time and muscle spent."
Many people get discouraged by these workout plateaus, which often become "dropout" zones for novices who haven't made exercise a habit. One key to pushing past the plateau, Brooks says, is to change your routine.
"Humans improve physically by the overload principle," he says. "This means we adapt to a new stimulus by getting stronger. But once the stimulus is no longer new and the body becomes efficient at doing that activity, improvement levels off." Since most people adapt to a physical routine in about six weeks, he says, that's a good time to change your workout.
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Top trainers list numerous ways to throw your body a curve. You can try a new activity--such as in-line skating, kick boxing or swimming--and alternate it with your primary form of exercise. By alternating activities, you work different muscle groups in different ways to achieve better results and more well-rounded fitness while reducing your risk of injury and boredom.
You can also stick with one activity, but do it in different ways. For example, if you walk daily, take a new route, add some hills or try faster-paced intervals. Adding motivational music, enlisting the help of a coach or trainer or exercising with a buddy all can help push you past a fitness plateau.
"The point is to get out of the rut of always doing the 'same old, same old,' " says John Philbin, president of the National Strength Professionals Assn., a Germantown, Md.-based organization that trains and certifies fitness professionals.
Altering the order in which you do exercises, switching to new exercises or using different forms of resistance (for example, free weights instead of strength-training machines) can all challenge the body in new ways and boost results, says Philbin, who is also assistant strength coach for the NFL's Washington Redskins. "We have six to 10 different workouts for the football players," he says. "Just about every time they train it's different."
