Plateaus are not only in Arizona.

Have you ever started to eat ravenously? Then you get stuffed halfway through the meal and start feeling full, heavy, or even sick. But you go on. Then the high you first felt goes away and you are just flat. You are happy to be eating so the food does not go to waste. But there is no more fun. Have you ever felt a relationship get stale after awhile? Either the sex is no fun or the conversation reveals nothing new about the other person or nothing exhilarating and inspiring.

Something similar can happen when you work out. If you do the same routine for over three months, six months, or especially one year, you may see that your body - endurance, muscle growth and vitality - does not respond as it first did. And you may end up feeling bored. Some people -those that lack motivation and drive, or those that simply are not turned on about the workout and need to be to keep going - will decrease the amount of days working out or stop working out altogether!

Everyone's medical health, fitness, body and goals differ. For a healthy person approved to work out by their physician, who wants to tone up and lose excess fat, workout routines should be changed every three or four weeks, then more dramatically every three to four months, and then even more each year. That does not mean that if something works for you, such as running a certain amount of hours on the treadmill every week, you have to change it. It could mean small, subtle changes like varying the incline on the treadmill, incorporating arm movements, or changing the leg weight exercises you do that day. It could mean running outside for a periods of some weeks or months. Changing your workout routine could be varying the abdominal exercises you do or using a Swiss ball with abdominal exercises for some weeks or months. [A blog for abdominal exercises will follow soon.]

At first you may need to work with a personal trainer to design your workout for some weeks, months or a year. Now if you are injured or really feel you want to maintain where you are at in fitness, a plateau is not a definite no-no.A primary idea in working out is to really get to know and feel your body, and to be able to design your own workouts. [A blog on personal trainers will follow soon.]

Take a trip to Arizona to see those mesmerizing plateaus. But don't have them in your workouts! Don't forget to check out my web site! www.louizapatsis.com