“I have to exercise in the morning before my brain figures out what I’m doing.”
- Marsha Doble
You should have a “refresh” button for everything — just a click or two could give you instant improvement. Same with annoyed workouts. Maybe yours has frozen up like a gym version of Win95. You may think you have to reboot, or even upgrade. Instead, all you need are a few tweaks for a faster, more enjoyable, more effective workout.
You can do better — starting with your warmup. Most individuals warm up with a few minutes of light cycling or jogging. And that’s fine if all you plan to do in your workout is lower-body exercise. But an upper-body workout requires something that’s more in sync with your plans. Switch your warmup to jumping rope, rowing lightly, or using any cardio machine, like an elliptical trainer, that makes you pump your arms.
As for the rest of your routine — stop calling it routine. Refresh it, and yourself, with these great techniques.
1. Reverse the order of your exercises.
Your standard routine likely consists in starting out with your major lifts, and then moving toward more isolated exercises. For the next couple of sessions, try performing your isolated exercises first. This will incorporate the principle of pre-fatigue into your workout. When you move to the major lifts, you will have already used up some of your strength and you’ll have to work harder to really give your muscles a run for their money.
