You Gotta Mix It Up!

So, I'm about to seemingly directly contradict myself here, but remember when I talked about how you have to do something you like in order to maintain a fitness regimen? Well, you also have to mix it up a bit.

Which is not to say you should intersperse doing what you enjoy with forcing yourself through something that makes you miserable (save that for, I dunno, your desk job or whatever), just that it's helpful to not just do one thing all the time. It's like ... say you love gelato. In particular, you love lemon gelato. So you have lemon gelato every single day. But what happens? Right, you get dead sick of lemon gelato and really just gelato in general and you'd prefer just about anything else, or even nothing at all. And then one day the gelato person gives you espresso gelato instead and you're all "this is great! I love gelato again!" And the next day you might go back to lemon but it seems to taste a little better than it did before.

If you will forgive my tortured metaphor (or would it be simile, since I did use "it's like"? ANYWAY), a similar thing happens with your muscles. If you make them do basically the same thing over and over again they get bored and complacent and they stop processing information effectively, kind of like almost anyone who's ever taken a junior-high math class. But if you mix it up now and then, throw yourself a curve ball on a regular basis, your muscles go, "WHOA! What the heck is this?! This is new and exciting and we have to figure it out!" and they kick back into high-functioning mode and then you feel awesome, if perhaps a bit sore.

It doesn't even have to be all that different, really, and it doesn't have to be all the time. When I feel like my pilates practice is getting stale all I have to do is take a simple yoga class to get myself feeling like I'm working again. If you're already a yogi it might be as simple as trying an Ashtanga class rather than your regular Hatha practice. Maybe getting out for a hike now and then complements your cycling, or a little golf helps your rowing. It's a question only you can answer, and it's as simple as "what's another thing you like to do?" Answer that, and you're on your way!

Tomorrow I'm going to talk about your bed. Oh yes. See you then!

- Sarah