Are you Team Structured or Team Random? I’ve been a fitness professional for over a decade now, and if you guess my vote is for structured training, you’re right! But hold on. I believe random workouts have a place in an overall training program (that is structured, of course:).

This post will review the good, the bad, and the ugly of structured fitness vs. random workouts. Let’s get right into it because my fingers are feeling feisty!

The Good

Random Workouts

If you’ve been working out for a while but have not attained any specific goal and have no plan in place, you’re missing structure. Maybe you follow YouTube workouts and try different classes at your gym, but you have no direction or way of tracking progress. You don’t have a particular goal like running a mile under 10 minutes or increasing core stability and strength to reduce chronic low-back pain.

That’s cool if you want to get moving and keep moving to enhance your physical and mental health. There’s value in that.

Random workouts can also be fun to include in a fitness program to taper off training and add variety before beginning the next phase. That is the good news!

Structured Fitness

So this should be an easy sell. Exercise is a powerful tool. Do you want it to have a positive impact or a mediocre impact? Structured training maximizes your results, minimizes the risk of overtraining and injuries. A structured plan includes:

• defined goals and steps on how to achieve them
• assigned workouts specific to your fitness level and desired outcome
• routines to enhance specific movement skills
• effectively learning to remain consistent with exercise routines throughout any transitions life takes you – no excuses

Without structure, what are you working toward? Structure is the way to set yourself up for success in the long term, and this is sustainable fitness.

The Bad and Ugly

Random Fitness

I’ll start with the ugly. Basically, it’s like throwing the dice and hoping for the best. The bad, you could get complacent, and even worse, rack on injuries. With no structure, you miss a huge opportunity to impact your health long-term. Exercise creates a rippling effect in our day-to-day life. You’re either building a durable and resilient body or stressing the same joint structures with no intention.

Structured Fitness

Many people enthusiastically jump into fitness challenges, i.e., 12-week summer body; lose 20lbs before your wedding; etc. These types of programs are structured. However, their focus is not sustainability. While these programs usually help you attain the results you sought, sadly, most individuals gain back all the weight they lose. The question here becomes, how will you sustain the results once the challenge is over? That’s where many individuals fail, and it’s back to square one. Don’t go back to square one. Instead, invest in a fitness program that will deliver long-term results.

Conclusion

Random workouts have a place in a structured training program to add variety and taper off a training cycle. If your workouts are random then you will get sporadic results.

Set yourself up for success, get started with a structured training program to overcome your obstacles and achieve your goals effectively. Contact me to set up a free consultation and learn more about my programs.

Thanks for stopping by!

Stand tall Breathe deep,
Corina Miranda-Risnes