Spice up your exercise

If you’ve been working out, you’d understand the need to find ways to tweaking some exercise for them to be new and challenging. More than just making the exercise less monotonous, modifying your typical workout also allows the body to expend more calories and build more muscles.

Modifications also allow for a good change – alleviating the stress you would normally have put on the same muscles and joints. You’d also be delaying your training plateau. Common ways of modifying a routine is to add more weights when working with the dumbbells or increasing the intensity of your workout. The suggestions below are so simple you’d be laughing yourself to the gym.

Add resistance to push-up Easy ways to modify the traditional push-up is by adding a little resistance. You can do this by first having a backpack filled with some towels, then strapping the backpack to your back. You’ll feel the contraction in the shoulders more than the chest. You can also do a diamond push-up. Get in plank position, but this time, your index finger and thumb create a diamond shape by touching the other index finger and thumb. As you push up, the hands touch the chest while the elbows are closed together at your sides. This modification helps activate the core even further while working additional muscle parts to build strength.
Exercise on unlevelled surface When doing yoga or pilates poses, consider moving to a less stable surface. The instability will automatically move you to engage your core, strengthening your abdomen. You can also modify traditional strength moves with a stability ball. Try doing a push-up with the ball. Or, get into a plank pose and balance in this position. Then roll the ball up and down your legs to the knees. If you keep maintaining a flat back, this minor tweak works not only the core muscles but other desired muscle group as well.


Add resistance to an ab workout Just changing the way you place your knees or legs during a sit up can engage the muscles in your lower belly. Try a cross-fit sit-up. Sit butterfly style, with the bottom of your shoes touching each other, forming a diamond shape. Now lie down until your shoulder blades touch the ground, but with your arms stretched out in front of you. As you come up again, draw in your belly button, use power to bring your arms and chest forward. Keeping your hips down will see an improved definition to your lower abdominal area – the much sought after ‘V’ we all want.

Combine exercises If you’re used to just working with weights, such as doing a bicep curl, you can up your workout by combining this with a squat and a shoulder press. These compound movements will work on more of the body’s muscle group rather than the traditional bicep curl, increasing strength and improving coordination.