Hello everyone welcome to Fit Body Happy Joints. My name is Shannon. Today we're going to talk about

when to mix it up versus when to keep it the same. Plateauing is super common if you're a fitness enthusiast and it's not necessarily something

to panic about, it's just something to get curious about.

But the first thing that people want to do when they stop getting sore or when they feel like

they're plateauing is they want to mix it up and it's a totally normal and natural

inclination but is that actually more effective? Should we be challenging our body in

different ways all the time? The answer is yes and no, and it's something that

I'll explain in today's episode. So welcome. If your goal is

muscle hypertrophy and strength from your resistance training, which is generally

what I recommend, you know, until you get to a muscle

mass that you're happy with, mixing it up is actually not the best thing to do when you hit a plateau.

At least you don't want to mix it up significantly. So a lot of people will

measure their workouts on soreness and I don't recommend measuring the efficacy of

your workouts on sore. So what happens is many people stop getting sore,

as sore at least in their fitness routine and they think that that means they're not

progressing. So they mix it up and they start getting sore again and I think that the change in their

workouts is what is the factor that's driving more progress. But soreness often happens when you do an activity your

body isn't used to and so many studies show that it's actually not a reliable

indication of muscle damage or muscle stress. So just because you aren't sore

doesn't necessarily mean that you're not progressing. And soreness isn't bad or

wrong, you know, I still often get sore, but it's not something that you should seek out, I guess I should say.

Also, you don't need to keep your muscles guessing and your muscles don't get confused.

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