Workouts - Do you have a "routine" or play it by ear?

I don't do well with ambiguity. Routine is my saviour. So, I do have a workout routine. My "usual" is running 4.5ish miles on MWF and doing strength training TR, and Zumba on Sat.

However, I shake it up everyone once in a while (in a "planned" manner). When I have an day off I might sub a zumba class for a run. Or I'll do a long run on the weekend and throw in an extra strength training day. Right now I'm doing Boot Camp 2x a week for 4 weeks while my kids are out of town.

So I don't play it by ear (that would FREAK me out), but I do change it up enough that it doesn't get "stale".

I actually [and here comes the nerd lol] have a spreadsheet for my workouts. M-S with Sunday being a rest day. Each day has different workouts on them BUT I know what I am doing that day, how long it will take etc. Two kids mean I have to be organized, especially when one is heading to school in Aug.

As someone who micro-manages, I'd like to say I have a set schedule I stick to, but I don't LOL. I really listen to my body every morning and it just comes to me, whatever I want to do, whatever I'm in the mood for; an early run outside before the world wakes up, a Dance DVD with my daughters, yoga with my husband that usually segways to sex with the husband, or running on the tread while watching Shaun of the Dead for my umptenth time (like I did this morning LOL)

I have a routine outlined on my calendar, I put down my Turbo Fire workouts and alternate C25K every other day.

I have a 7 year old. The only routine I have is his. :grumble: (hurry up summer vacation, be gone!)

As such, I play it by ear - but that's o.k. too. I never would have tried Zumba or the Cardio Interval class if I had myself set up on a schedule. I do try to run at least 3x per week though.

I actually [and here comes the nerd lol] have a spreadsheet for my workouts. M-S with Sunday being a rest day. Each day has different workouts on them BUT I know what I am doing that day, how long it will take etc. Two kids mean I have to be organized, especially when one is heading to school in Aug.

Hahaha... I thought I only did that, its good to know I am not alone

I to have it all planned out to cater for any exercise plans (ie 30 Day Shred) then making sure I get in some good cardio, yoga and to see the 'big picture' which allows me to shake things up in a control freak kind of way. Truth is if I leave it to what I feel like on the day, I am scared that I wont do anything and spiral out of control again.

There are positives and negatives to both having a routine and constantly switching it up. A routine gives you opportunities that constantly changing won't. These include awareness of progress, as well as making it easy to apply progression, and avoiding soreness. It's easier to see that you've improved if you do the same thing, because you'll know when you can lift more, do more reps, or go longer than before. As far as progression, if you constantly change up your routine, then you'll have trouble pushing yourself a bit harder today than you did yesterday, which is extremely important to produce consistent improvement.

A huge reason why some trainees like using a routine is avoiding soreness. Many make the mistake of equating soreness with workout effectiveness, a concept which has been proven to be untrue. In fact, it's the progression I mentioned above that keeps your body developing, not pushing yourself to soreness. Once your body is used to a routine, it won't get sore anymore, but you'll still see results for a while longer as long as you use progression. This time between when the soreness stops and the routine becomes ineffective can be months. Of course, even with progression you'll stall at some point, and need to make changes to your routine.

That being said, there are certainly good sides of changing it up. It seems like the OP is constantly changing lots of things every day, and I've found that this works pretty well for me too, but not because I'm "keeping the body guessing". Rather, I'm keeping myself interested and mentally focussed because I'm contstantly reevaluating how I feel and what I think my body needs. This constant changing keeps every day interesting, and keeps me excited about what's happening tomorrow, instead of saying "It's Tuesday, so my routine says I'm doing workout XYZ."

If, however, you decide to switch things up every day, it's very important to have some sort of standardized way of testing your progress, so you know you're heading in the right direction. If you want to be a better runner, then every other month have a test day where you run X miles and time yourself. Since I'm going into the Army, I use the Army physical fitness test, which is pushups, situps, and a 2 mile run. This lets me know if my workouts are really helping me get better, or if I'm doing the wrong things.

So remember a few key points when you decide what you want to do;

1. Soreness does NOT equal effectiveness.
2. Progression, not soreness, is the key to improvement. 1 more rep, 1 more lb., 1 more minute, whichever you want, but work harder today than you did last time you trained.
3. You don't need to keep your body guessing, but you may preffer changes to keep yourself interested and focussed.
4. Routine or not, figure out same way of testing yourself from time to time to see if you are progressing towards your specific goals.

I mostly wing it based on what I feel like doing, which muscles are sore, what the weather's like and how crowded the gym is. Also, based on whatever my workout buddy feels like doing if I don't have something specific in mind. It's been beautiful out this week so we've gone for walks/runs twice. Much better than being stuck on the treadmill!