The idea of going to the gym and knowing exactly what you’re going to do makes workouts much less stressful for most people. A weekly workout routine solves this issue, but what’s more simple than just doing the same workout every day?
It’s not bad to do the same workout for each gym session, but you’ll get the most benefit of a workout by changing the right variables at the right times.
How To Create an Effective Everyday Workout Routine
Work the Entire Body With Compound Lifts
One of the major problems doing the same routine every day is muscle imbalance – when some muscles are far more developed than others. Muscle imbalance can be problematic as it can lead to poor posture, joint pain, and injury if unaddressed. The best way to avoid muscle imbalance, as well as getting the most benefit out of your workout, is to focus on compound lifts.
Compound lifts are any exercises that use more than one joint at the same time. The most effective examples include squats, chest press, pullups, etc. Most people gravitate towards isolation exercises – exercises where only one joint is moving – because of exercise machines found in most gyms. Although machines are convenient and comfortable to use, they do not engage the muscle the same way free weight compound movements do. In other words, you get more bang for your buck doing compound exercises as oppose to isolation exercises.
Here are some example compound lifts for each of the major muscle groups:
| Legs | Squats, deadlifts, lunges |
| Chest | Bench Press, chest press, pushups |
| Back | Pullups, deadlifts, rows |
| Shoulders | Overhead press |
| Glutes | Hip Thrust, deadlift |
| Core | Plank variations |
Bring Down the Intensity
Working out every single day means your body will not have time to recovery from a super intense workout. Although you may feel fine the day after an intense cycle class, continuing this for weeks on end will build up stress in the body. When the body is overly stressed, it doesn’t want to lose weight or build muscle; it just wants to survive to the next day.
You’ll know your workouts are too intense when the following signs of overtraining start to appear:
- No energy throughout the day
- No physical changes after weeks/months of exercise
- Performance in the gym goes down (lifting less weight than normal, running shorter distances, etc.)
Instead, you should feel more energized after leaving the gym.
Use Progressive Overload
Progressive Overload is simply making each workout harder than the last. This can mean adding weight, reps, time, etc. to you normal routine. This is also one of the most important principals of any workout routine; without it, you will most likely fail to see results after the first few weeks of exercise. It’s important because the body adapts to all stresses it places on the body. This adaptation may look like building muscle, losing fat, gaining endurance, etc. depending on the workout you’re doing. However, once your body adapts, it will need a stronger stimulus to create further change. This is why so many people will start a workout routine, see great results, then suddenly hit a wall. It’s because they fail to make the workout challenging over time.
The easiest way to progressively overload a workout is to either add weight or reps while maintain good workout posture. This is much more accomplishable with compound lifts, which is even more reason to focus on them in your workouts.
Add Active Rest Days When Needed
Most people would benefit by turning a 6-7 day routine into a 2-3 day because they don’t get enough rest. Although the best rest periods for you depend on many factors, most beginners only need to be in the gym 2-3 days a week while getting active rest days on the rest of the week.
Refer to the signs of overtraining above. Even when you closely monitor intensity, you may still experience the fatigue and lack of progress associated with overtraining. When this happens, you can use the following forms of light exercise to replace workout days with an active rest day:
- Walking
- Stretching/yoga
- House work (laundry, cleaning, gardening, etc.)
- Recreational sports
Another reason to add active rest days is consistency. Many people will promise themselves to come to the gym 7 days a week, but in reality only come in 3 -4 times. This isn’t because you’re lazy or undisciplined, it’s because you – like everyone else – have a life full of twists and turns and many other obligations other than fitness. Although 3-4 is better than nothing, most people will take that as a defeat since this is half of their expected goal of 7 days. Marking any week as a defeat makes you more likely to fall off the wagon and stop going to the gym entirely.
To avoid this trap, it’s best to make goals that are purposely below what you believe you’re capable of. For example, if you think you can come in 5 days a week, set the goal for 3 days. By effortlessly hitting 3 days a week months on end, you’ll not only stay consistent with your routine long-term, but you’ll also avoid the guilt associated with failing a larger goal. Just be sure to challenge yourself down the road by adding an extra day or two when you’re ready.
Example Every Day Workout Routines
Each of the following are general examples for beginners, intermediate, and advances gym goers. However, for best results, customize your own routine based on the information above.
Beginner (Bodyweight)
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
| Wall Angels | 3 | 5 |
| Assisted Pushup | 3 | 8-12 |
| Split Squat | 3 | 8-12 |
| McGill Curlup | 3 | 8-12 |
| Bird Dog | 3 | 8-12 |
| Glute Bridges | 3 | 8-12 |
Intermediate (Free weights)
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
| Goblet Squat | 3 | 8-12 |
| Dumbbell Shoulder Press | 3 | 8-12 |
| Dumbbell Pullover | 3 | 8-12 |
| Cable Row | 3 | 8-12 |
| Hip Thrusts | 3 | 8-12 |
| Decline Sit-up | 3 | 8-12 |
Advanced
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
| Barbell Squat | 3 | 5 |
| Barbell Row | 3 | 8-12 |
| Barbell Bench Press | 3 | 8-12 |
| Pullups | 3 | 8-12 |
| Hip Thrusts | 3 | 8-12 |
| Hanging Leg Raises | 3 | 8-12 |
Cons of Doing the Same Thing Daily
Muscle Imbalance
As mentioned before, muscle imbalance is almost inevitable with the same workout every day. This is because a routine with different exercises each day will hit every muscle group by the end of the week, but the same routine every daily will only hit a select few.
Risk of Overtraining
Even when intensity is controlled, it’s very hard not to over train certain muscle groups while doing the same thing every day. This is especially true if you’re literally exercising every day, giving the body no recovery days.
When It’s Time to Change Your Routine
At some point, your workout routine will stop working. Even if you’ve paced out your intensity perfectly, or used progressive overload like a pro, your body will become so adapted to the workout that nothing will create progress again. This is called a plateau, when the results of each workout decrease so much that no progress can be made anymore. The only way out of this hole is to make a major change to the routine. In fact, the number one rule of breaking a plateau is this; do whatever you’re not use to doing. Going outside of your comfort zone to do exercises you’ve never done is almost guaranteed to show results when stuck in a plateau. Below are a list of effect strategies to resume progress:
Change your rep range
The most common rep range people use is 8 to 12. This means choosing a weight to where doing as many reps as possible would land you within 8 to 12 for the set. Those who want to keep all the same exercises from their original workout can change their routine simply by increasing or decreasing the rep range.
For example, increasing the rep range to 15-20 means significantly decreasing weight, but needing to move more in order to complete the set. Another example is 1-6, which is the complete opposite. Although these are less reps, you’ll need significantly more weight and energy to complete all 6 repetitions.
It’s important to actually increase the weight for low reps and decrease for high reps. Let’s say you use 40 pounds for 10 reps of a chest press. Simply using the same 40lbs but stopping at 6 reps will not make the exercise different. Remember, the weight should be so heavy that you can’t complete more than 6 reps of the exercise. Therefore, this person must increase the weight to around 60lbs. The same can be said in reverse when using high reps, and the exact weight change 100% depends on the individual.
Change your focus
This is similar to changing the rep range, but applies more to your mindset than your actual workout. Changing your focus means shifting your workout goals to something along the same lines, but different from your original goal. For example, those trying to lose weight can shift to trying to get stronger instead. The two goals actually support one another because building muscle and strength speeds up the metabolism, making weight loss easier.
It is also mentally rewarding to change goals as having the same goal for too long can cause some people to lose motivation, stress over lack of progress, and overall have a negative relationship with exercise. One of the number one rules of long term health is consistent exercise. If changing your goal from weight loss to strength gains helps motivate you to come to the gym, you need to make that change.
Here’s a short list of common goals people can focus on after their original workout goals have stalled:
- Mobility and flexibility
- Endurance
- Strength
- Sports and competition
Replace your go-to exercises
Everyone has exercises that they look forward to doing at the gym. This could be heavy barbell squat, 30 minutes on the elliptical, circuit training on the machines, etc. However, these exercises may be part of the reason you’re not seeing progress anymore. As mentioned before, the body adapts quickly if too many variables are kept the same, including exercise selection. To combat this it’s best to find an alternative to these go-to exercises in order to continue progressing.
For example, instead of doing barbell squat, you can switch to lunges. These are very similar movements, but because the muscles are recruited very differently in a lunge, this change is enough to break a plateau.