Changing it up

So I've heard that you should change up your workout every 6 weeks so your body doesn't get used to it.  My question is, if you jog on a treadmill, what kind of change up are we talking.  Is changing to interval jogging a change up or do we need to do a more drastic change like swimming for awhile?  And if so, do you swim or whatever for 6 weeks and then go back to your original workout?  Any advice is appreciated!

Add some incline or add in intervals. Do shorter sessions at higher speeds and longer sessions at lower speeds. You need to add in some weight training as well if you are not doing that already.

It's not that exact. Basically, when your routine gets too easy, you need to make it harder. That could be 6 weeks or it could be longer or shorter.

I would recommend cross-training on a general basis anyway so you are working different muscle groups and get better overall health.

I started out walking (of course), then progressed to jogging.  Once I could jog a mile I wanted to up my intensity.  This is what I'm doing now.  .5 Mile @ 4.5 mph, then 1 mile interval of 45 second sprints @ 6.2 mph and jogging at 4.5 mph or lower depending.  Finish up with 2-3 minutes walking lunges.  Do this 5x's a week.  Mon., Wed., Fri. night I do various arm exercises with 8 lb. weights and ab work.  I usually don't do anything on the weekends.  Although I feel worked out after these, I'm sure in a couple weeks I will need to change it up.  I'm looking for suggestions.  I like the eliptical, but isn't that about the same as jogging or is that enough of a change?  Thanks for the imput.

So as I'm sure you know, there are many, many ways to change up your routine.  I would suggest NOT running 5 days a week.  Even when I train for longer races, I never run more than 4 days.  The other thing is that the way you change things up depends a lot on what your overall goals are.  

As far as the running goes, if you want to run faster, you need to run faster.  Your 45 second intervals are a good start, but you might want to try this:  warm up for 3-5 minutes then start to increase your time at 6.2 from 45 seconds to a minute and then back to your normal run speed.  Increase that time by 10-15 seconds a week.  Eventually, 6.2 will be your normal run speed.  The faster you run, the better workout your giving yourself.  If you are doing these sorts of workouts, your body isn't going to find it easy for quite some time.

Make sense?

Linn

do incline on the treadmill. that'll get your heartrate up a bit.

Walk/run with light weights. Walk backwards on your treadmill. Change it up everyday. Warm up with a 5 min walk, Run for 10 min, stop and do push ups or crunches, run faster for 5 min then stop and do resistance bands on your arms, then jog for 5 min then do lunges and cool down with a walk for 5 min. I say just change it up and keep trying to beat your previous days workout so you are constantly working harder.

I am changing things up b/c I injured my foot a little. Have to stay off of running for two weeks (thankfully time is coming to an end) and the step aerobics I was doing was getting easy. So I am doing a month of bootcamp 2 x a week for an hour. He mixes it up every class and it is super hard. Good luck.