Do you exercise, whether at home or the gym? If yes, then when was the last time you changed your exercise routine? If you say more than 6 weeks, then its time to change your workout. Wonder why? ... Read on to find out, why and how often you should be changing your workout...

Think of a workout as a skill that you're body is meant to acquire. When you start a new workout, the exercises are challenging. Similar to when you learn a new skill, your brain has to work hard at adapting to it.

After repeating it a number of times, you brain adapts to the skill. So, it doesn't have to work hard at performing it. Over further repetitions, your brain masters the skill, and the amount of effort your brain needs to make to perform this skill is minimal.

Similarly, as you repeat the same workout a number of times, your body gets better at it. As your body gets better at performing the workout, it has to make less effort to do the same workout. With lesser effort to perform the same workout, your body burns lesser calories.

So, the longer you keep performing the same workout, the lesser is the incremental benefit from performing it, and fewer are the calories that you burn, while doing it.

If you stick to the same workout over a long period of time, your body hits a weight loss plateau. As hard as you try, that weighing scale just does not budge!

Now, that you know why you should be changing your exercise routine, the question is how often should you change it?

The real answer depends on your fitness level and the level of challenge that the workout provides. The fitter you are, the faster your body can adapt to new workouts.

For beginners, six weeks is the time period over which your body gets used to your current workout. For intermediate level fitness, you should change it every 3-4 weeks. For elite athletes and extremely fit people, the change frequency can be as low as every 1-2 weeks.

Wonder what to change in your workout? That could mean, changing the exercises, the sequence, the intensity, the format, the number of sets, repetitions, even the length of your rest period. You can change any of these factors to update your workout. If you need help with a new workout to gain muscle.

So, if its been a while that you changed your workout, get yourself a new workout! Improve your fitness, lower your body fat and get a toned body.