The same workout over and over

meharmahshahid

As many people say, doing the same workout over and over is not effective at one point because your body gets used to it. So after how long should I switch my workout?

Shortgirlrunning

I find it most useful to follow a program. I have a running schedule that ups my mileage every week and I follow a weight lifting program as well as tracking my lifting so I can see that I am lifting more over time. Personally, I just do a lot better with that kind of structure.

jjlbrick

I have been cycling everyday for over a year. It’s not the same everyday. Some days are windy, hot some days. The terrain changes.
I go out in the evening it’s a race to get back before dark.

DancingMoosie

It depends on the workout. Lifting would progress by increasing weight/reps/sets over time...running/walking workouts would progress over speed and distance. Cardio, increase time/duration or intensity.
Doing the same workout doesn't exactly decrease it's effectiveness, you just wouldn't progress.

kshama2001

meharmahshahid wrote: »

As many people say, doing the same workout over and over is not effective at one point because your body gets used to it. So after how long should I switch my workout?

When you no longer feel challenged.

• When I want more of a challenge for strength training, I increase weights and possibly reps.
• When I want more of a challenge for walking, I increase distance and hills.
• When I want more of a challenge for yoga, I do my Om Namah Shivaya Inna Gadda Divada routine

cwolfman13

meharmahshahid wrote: »

As many people say, doing the same workout over and over is not effective at one point because your body gets used to it. So after how long should I switch my workout?

Not sure what you mean by "not effective"...I've been cycling for 7 years and it's perfectly effective for fitness and expending calories. If I want more of a challenge, I increase distance, or go faster, etc.

ritzvin

For a lot of activities, your speed/performance improves such that you'll be doing more/burning more in the given amount of time (without actively switching anything).

The OP doesn't specify the activity though.. possibly it could be an aerobics video with the same movements at the same speed with no obvious progression without switching to something else (at least a different video that's a bit harder).

Ariennalee

I use a TomTom fitness watch - they're discontinued so they're cheap on ebay. The watch keeps track of my heart rate while I'm doing something and awards me points for the work out, based on my heart rate during it. It also awards me fewer points for doing the same exercise over and over again. So as I increase my fitness, my heart rate during the same exercise drops, reducing my points *and* the algorithm reduces my points. I like earning points so I step it up

AnnPT77

It matters whether you're talking about calories, or fitness.

Speaking in generalities, slightly oversimplified:

The same exercise at the same objective intensity** for the same amount of time at the same bodyweight will burn approximately the same number of calories. (Heart-rate-based trackers may say otherwise, but they're estimating, and in that case providing an inaccurate result. The heart pumps more blood/oxygen per beat as you get fitter, so it can beat less often to do the same work. Lower heart rate will generally make a device think you're doing less work, even if it's not true. For calorie burn, what matters is the work, in pretty much the physics sense of the term.

** Objective intensity is something like running speed. It's not the same as subjective intensity, which is how you feel, how hard you breathe, etc. It's also not heart rate or sweat.

As body weight drops, you burn slightly fewer calories in any exercise where the work involves moving your bodyweight, for obvivous reasons. Different exercises are more affected by this than others, in reality. (Example: Running, you're moving your bodyweight lots. Seated stationary biking, you're moving your body only a bit.)

Fitness-wise, when you do an exercise consistently, your body adapts and becomes more efficient at doing it. That doesn't mean it will burn meaningfully fewer calories, but it does mean that at some point, doing it won't keep increasing your fitness level. To keep increasing your fitness level, you have to keep challenging your then-current fitness level, keeping the work just a manageable bit difficult.

Generically, that means that fitness progress requires gradually increasing exercise intensity, duration, frequency, or changing to a more challenging exercise type. So, as others have said, to keep getting stronger from strength work, you have to progressively lift more weight (heavier weight, or more repetitions). To keep making progress at cardiovascular exercise, the adjustments vary depending on exercise type, but it's generally something like going faster, doing it longer, or doing it more often.

Chieflrg

meharmahshahid wrote: »

As many people say, doing the same workout over and over is not effective at one point because your body gets used to it. So after how long should I switch my workout?

Kind of a general statement that can be confusing to the general mass without a definition of "workout".

By saying "same workout" there are many ways to interpret this.

If we are speaking of exact same applied dosed of stress of all variables, then yes the workout should be changed fairly soon to overload and force an adaptation we can recover from before our next time through.

If our stress is not developing an adaptation, then we need to change one or more of the following variables in most cases.

1. How applied- movement/means of dosing stress.
2. Intensity- how strong of a stress
3. Volume- how much at a defined intensity
4. Frequency- how many applications of stress in a micro cycle
5. Resensitive the reaction to stress.

How often should a person change it?
Once our bodies become less sensitive to the stress.

There is no answer that is universal. We are humans and have different levels of endurance and sensitivity to training.

I encourage you to seek the data of you as a individual and then you will know what you need and respond to currently.

sijomial

Milo of Croton carried a newborn calf on his shoulders every day and continued doing that as the calf grew into a full sized bull - was he doing the same workout everyday?

If his ultimate goal was to carry a full sized bull then (if the legend is to be believed) his workout was effective despite being repeated daily for years as it had progression programmed in.

I guess he would have switched routines when he ate the bull - allegedly in one day.

More information please OP.....
What are your goals?
What does effective mean to you and how are you measuring that?
What is your workout or routine?