I will say from the outset that I’m a huge proponent of writing down your workouts; it’s important to have a plan when you walk through the doors of the gym—be that a home or brick and mortar one—because you don’t want to waste time standing around trying to figure out what you want/need to do. That said, once you’ve been consistently working out for a little while, there’s nothing wrong with eschewing writing it all down in favor of a looser approach—a freestyle if you will.
For instance, in my case, that means I might approach my routine for the day with only two parameters in mind: upper body strength training mixed with plyometrics. Once that’s done, I target specific body parts (i.e. shoulders, back, biceps, triceps, etc.), determine the reps, sets and exercises I’ll do for each, then go about the business of getting it done.
While that may still seem very “planned”, the fact that I don’t write it down means I’m free to change things up mid-stream; that’s not something I’d normally do if it’s already on paper. It also means I’m infinitely more likely to play with the volume of weight, number of sets and reps, and rest times between exercises, a lot more than I would if I’d had it all planned out; that in and of itself can be a good thing—especially if you’re looking for ways to infuse new life into a tired routine.
Make no mistake, I still write down a majority of my workouts and, even when I don’t, I still approach my routine with some type of a plan; the important thing to remember here is, sometimes it’s good to change things up. Whether that means you ditch the pen and pad or take a Zumba class instead of a spinning one, makes no difference.
