Three Ways You Can Effectively Adjust Your Workout Plan

Hi!! I’m so excited to write this blog post today. Personally, I used to alwaysssss struggle with how to change my workouts yet still make sure they were effective. I didn’t want to feel like I was wasting my time, but really needed to know how to make adjustments due to getting sick, injured or just not having as much time that day.

First of all, I’d recommend making sure you have a solid workout program as a foundation. You could purchase workouts from an online fitness coach or use one of the many app workout programs there are out there.

I offer 1:1 coaching where I give my clients custom workouts based on their needs, equipment available, goals, schedule and etc- and I also have a monthly training membership. The monthly training membership is perfect if you want an app to track your workouts + progress and get new workouts each month, but don’t necessarily want 1:1 coaching. It’s only $39 a month and you can cancel at anytime! Here is the link to join (you’ll have app access and workouts within 48 hours of joining).

Now, let’s assume you have your workout program ready but need to make some adjustments due to whatever reason…what should you do?

1) You can change the listed reps/sets. For example: if it says do 4 sets of bicep curls, you can take out a set and do 3 instead. 3 sets is STILL EFFECTIVE and will save you some time (depending upon how much time you’re resting in between sets). If you’re lifting heavier and can’t quite do 4 sets, that’s another reason you could go down to 3 sets instead. The goal of each workout should be to push yourself and make sure the last few reps are very hard to get through. If you’re lifting lighter weight, you’re going to be able to do more but this isn’t necessary.

2) Take off 1-2 accessory exercises. Running short on time but still want to get the most out of your lift? Take off a few of the accessory exercises. Depending upon how your workout program is designed, these could be at the end of your workout. Generally speaking you want to do your compound movements towards the beginning because they require more energy/effort. You want to make sure you omit accessory movements instead of compound movements because compound movements are going to give you the most bang for your buck. Compound movements are exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench press, lunges (it works more than one muscle group). Accessory exercises are movements that primarily focus on one muscle group, such as bicep curls or lat pull downs. Taking out a few exercises will help shorten your workout yet :)

3) Change your days around. I know it can feel wrong, but it really doesn’t matter if you’re lifting on a Monday or Wednesday. If something comes up, feel free to switch your days around! In my app I always schedule my clients workouts on specific days. However, that’s just to give them something to follow. They can easily drag and drop the workouts around to better fit their needs. A lot of my clients lift 3-4 days per week which gives them 3 -4 days of flexibility throughout the week. It doesn’t matter what day you workout on, just try to get them all in.

I’m going to leave you with one of my favorite quotes…”Be strict about your goals but flexible with your approach”.

Thanks for reading and I hope this blog helped you!

xoxo,

Brooklyn