6 Tips to Adapt Your Workout Routine and Keep Your Body Active

The belief that physical activity only delivers results through long, intense workouts is giving way to a more realistic approach: “possible movement”. Rather than aiming for the perfect workout, the idea is to find ways to stay active that fit each person’s routine, available time and circumstances.

According to Rafael Uliani, a Sport Sciences graduate, former athlete and CPO at ZiYou, a company specialising in performance and wellbeing technologies, the benefits of physical activity are increasingly linked to frequency and consistency rather than intensity and performance alone. “The best workout is the one that can actually happen,” he says.

In practical terms, this means viewing exercise as something that can be adapted to each person’s current situation without losing sight of their goals. Shorter sessions, for instance, can be an option for people with limited time and may make it easier to keep going.

Here are 6 tips for adapting your workout to your routine and keeping your body active:

1. Stay consistent

When the aim is to look after your health and build habits, frequency is an important factor. While the type of result sought will shape the training strategy, following a consistent routine is generally more sustainable than doing long workouts only occasionally.

Sessions lasting 20 or 30 minutes, for example, may be easier to fit into everyday life. When done regularly, they can help reduce sedentary behaviour while supporting fitness and cardiovascular health.

2. Match the intensity to your pace

One of the main advantages of making consistency a priority is adherence. The more physical activity fits into your routine, the more likely it is to stop being an occasional task and become a habit. Intensity still matters, but it should progress in line with the individual.

When someone can maintain a regular frequency over the months, results are likely to be more consistent than with periods of major effort followed by long breaks. In addition, packing too much intensity into isolated sessions can increase the risk of discomfort and injury, particularly for those who have not yet established a physical activity routine.

3. Move away from “all or nothing” thinking

The “8 or 80” mindset can make it harder to maintain physical activity. People who believe training is only worthwhile when they have an hour available or can complete an intense workout may end up skipping it on busier days.

The so-called “weekend athlete” is one example: someone who spends several days without exercising and then tries to make up for that inactivity in one intense session. In this case, the lack of regularity can make it more difficult for the body to adapt to exertion. For that reason, a flexible routine with gradual progression and room for adjustments is likely to be more sustainable than a rigid schedule.

4. Build up movement throughout the week

International recommendations generally suggest around 150 minutes of moderate physical activity a week or 75 minutes of vigorous activity, spread across the week. What matters most is not simply how long a person trains on one particular day, but how successfully they remain active over weeks and months. Short sessions can also form part of this process when they are carried out regularly.

5. Use the available moments to move

A busy routine does not have to prevent exercise. Instead of waiting for a large block of free time, you can adapt activity to the time available that day. On some days, that may mean 20 minutes; on others, 40.

It is also possible to add more movement to everyday activities, whether by walking more, taking the stairs or doing short exercise sessions at home. Small choices repeated frequently can contribute more to building a habit than major efforts made only from time to time.

6. Begin with an achievable goal

For anyone returning to exercise, setting a realistic target can make it easier to establish a routine. Training for 20 minutes three or four times a week may be more sustainable than planning one-hour sessions every day and being unable to meet that goal.

It is also worth reducing the barriers to getting started. The easier it is to begin an activity, the more likely it is to happen. “Discipline does not mean rigidity. Creating a sustainable routine means understanding that there will be more productive days and others that are more difficult. The important thing is to maintain continuity. Results are a consequence of that consistency,” Rafael Uliani concludes.

By Gabriela Andrade