By now, your New Year’s exercise regimen may have gotten old and, well, boring. If anyone knows how to keep an exercise routine from getting dull, it’s fitness guru and celebrity trainer Harley Pasternak. The co-host of ABC’s new daytime TV makeover show “The Revolution,” who has trained Katy Perry, Robert Downey Jr. and Halle Berry, tells Metro why we should stay out of the workout doldrums and stick with the program.
“Change is what keeps the body developing,” Pasternak says. “Keep changing [your routine] up all the time. We expose the body to stimulus and it’s forced to adapt. That’s where we see the gain. Constantly changing forces the body to constantly adapt and keep adapting.”
If you’re bored with your exercise routine, your body and muscles are too — and the workout loses its effectiveness. Try Pasternak’s tips to keep your workout invigorating:
Change which parts of your body you work on.
Change the music you play during your workout.
Change tools: Whether you work with barbells or water bottles, change what you use.
Change the time of day that you exercise.
Power of five
Five is a lucky number with Pasternak, who has a Master of Science in Exercise Physiology and Nutritional Sciences, plus an honors degree in kinesiology. That figure kept cropping up in his routines, and it became the basis of his 5-Factor Success System Diet and Fitness Program ($100, www.hsn.com), which launched in January.
“When I was working on movie sets, we would be shooting five days a week and we’d do 25-minute workouts split into five-minute segments. There wasn’t a lot of time during shooting breaks so I’d be preparing five-minute meals with no more than five ingredients. I used that [basis] for the 5-Factor System because it’s how I found success.”
