Intensify Your Workout One Day at a Time
I’ve always held the belief that you can never get enough from your workout. There’s always room to push yourself further and grow stronger as an individual, both mentally and physically.
There are always bumps in the road, that is normal so we need to stop beating ourselves up over it. But one of the tricks that will definitely work is to instead think ahead of only the next 24 hours and put the plans in motion to just get a little better than you were yesterday.
This is a powerful technique, letting go of the baggage and instead taking it one day at a time with complete determination that it’s only going to take a little push to get better and if you stick with it results will come to you better than you have ever imagined, the key is to just keep at it even when you fumble.
But let’s intensify your workout even further with these 7 tips…
10 Tricks to Intensify Your Workout
1. Confuse Your Muscles – Muscle confusion is a great way to intensify your workout. The idea behind muscle confusion is that over time, doing the same exercises in the same way results in muscle boredom. For some great muscle confusion techniques, check out my article What is Muscle Confusion?
2. Test Different Times to Workout – You may or may not be a morning person, but the time you exercise can make a big difference in what you get out of your workout. While working out in the morning can be a great way to boost your energy through the day, you should work out when you can really give it all you’ve got. Your perspective on when to workout could totally change with 7 Reasons to Work Out in the Morning.
3. Get a Good Night’s Sleep – It’s often overlooked, but sleep is one of the biggest factors in your energy and motivation. If your workouts aren’t quite intense enough, make sure you’re getting some decent quality sleep the night before.
4. Goal Setting – Plan accordingly and make sure to set goals daily and weekly so as not to overwhelm yourself. Sometimes it’s too daunting when your goal is all about getting six packs or some other intense physique but setting them with a short time window can reduce the pressure and also keep you focused on a path to success.
5. Think about What You Eat – Aside from supplements, you should be thinking about everything you put in your body. One of the easiest ways to get more out of your workout is to eat a balanced diet throughout the day, consisting of whole grains, lean protein, and foods rich in vitamins and minerals. They key is just knowing and thinking about what the ingredients are that are going into your body, are they balanced and feeding you with energy when you need it the most?
6. Use a Pre-Workout Shake to Your Advantage – I can’t count how many times people have told me they just don’t have the energy to workout, and that’s it, end of story. In my humble opinion, you just need a bolt of energy to get your ass in gear, and once that ass is in gear and you see how good you feel, you’re going to naturally keep it up. Just need to find your groove, so check out one of these top-selling specialty energy mixes – 7 Reasons to Work Out in the Morning, 7 Reasons to Work Out in the Morning, or 7 Reasons to Work Out in the Morning.
7. Cut Your Workout Time in Half – There’s a great way to shorten your workouts so you can get in all done quicker, just try back to back exercises with no rest, aka circuit training. It’ll ante up your workouts with serious intensity and get you sweating buckets. Plus you get through your workouts way quicker!ENGN PreWorkout
8. Rest Your Muscles – Muscle recovery is essential if you want to improve your output at the gym. Over time, too little recovery time can actually hinder your performance and your results. I actually recommend taking a 5-7 day break from weight training every 6-8 weeks to allow your muscles to heal fully. Trust me, you’ll come back even stronger!
9. Warm Up with Jump Rope – Jump rope is a great way to kick things into high gear and intensify not only your weight training potential but also your ability to burn fat. Use it as a warm up period, or design a whole workout around it. For some ideas, take a look at my Jump Rope Workout here.
10. Dedicate Time to Stretching – You’ve probably heard it before, but this trick really works. You should be spending 10 minutes at the end of every workout stretching your muscles. Not only will you improve your muscle gains by up to 30%, but you’ll also improve recovery and reduce the potential for soreness and injury.
Have any questions or feedback about these Tricks to Intensify Your Workout? Please leave a comment below…
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Thank you for visiting! Weight Loss and Training is a health blog which features all the best weight loss tips that I have learned over my 20 years of training. My background includes a degree in Kinesiology from the world renown Simon Fraser University, certification in nutritional sciences from UBC, and Personal Trainer Specialist certification from Can Fit Pro.