8 Reasons Why Your Workout Isn't Working

By Jennipher Walters, Certified Personal Trainer and Fitness Instructor for SparkPeople

We all know how fantastic working out is for your health. But what happens when your workouts aren't delivering the results you want? Or you're not getting the results you think you should be getting? While any kind of physical activity is good, some workout plans are better than others and-as you might suspect-a lot of other factors come into play when trying to lose weight and tone up. So if your workout isn't working for you, one of the following eight reasons could be to blame. Find out how to turn that around and get the results you deserve!

1. You're not working hard enough.
If you have been exercising consistently for several weeks, months or years, it's definitely time to increase the intensity and start pushing yourself. As you work out more and more, your body adapts and becomes more efficient at doing that certain activity. This means that over time, the 30-minute workout that was challenging for you three months ago doesn't provide the same results. In fact, you're actually burning fewer calories and your body is no longer changing if you're still doing the same old thing.

2. You're working too hard.
Yes, you can actually work out too hard and too much. If you're someone who goes all out in every workout, or rarely to never take a day off to rest, you could actually be breaking your muscles down instead of building them. If you always feel tired and sore, have unexplained headaches, insomnia or just a general lack of motivation and an inability to complete your workouts, you may be overtraining.

3. You haven't changed your diet.
Exercise is awesome, but if you're not eating a nutritious diet with the appropriate number of calories for weight management, you could be shooting yourself in the foot. Proper nutrition fuels your workouts, but eat too much and you could gain weight (or hurt your weight-loss efforts), and eat too little, and you won't have enough energy to exercise.

4. You're only doing cardio. Yes, cardio is important for calorie burning, but a proper exercise plan includes cardio, strength training and flexibility. If you're just doing cardio, then you will be burning calories and strengthening your cardiovascular system, but you won't be really changing your body composition by building more muscle. For that you need strength training!

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More from SparkPeople:

· 4 Signs It's Time to Change Your Workout Routine
· VIDEO: 3 Ways You're Cheating During Your Workouts
· Are You in a Cardio Rut? Break Free!

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