When you started your training program your initial workouts would have been challenging. You’ve stuck with it diligently and the workouts have become easier,  you may have upped the weights and your body has responded. But now you’re starting to get bored and stale with your training program.

The question is – how do you know when it’s time for a change?

 With a little forethought you can learn to identify the signs that it's time to shake-up your workout training program to help you maintain the enthusiasm. Here are four of the most common signs that it’s time for a shake-up:

Top 4 Signs Your Workout Isn't Working

1. You’re bored.

This is probably the first indicator that you’re over it. You used to like riding the exercise bike, now you dread the thought of it but you persist because it’s “good for you”. Boredom is a natural response if you  stick at the same thing for too long. Variety is the spice of life! Mix up your training sessions. Instead of riding the exercise bike try riding outdoors, use the treadmill, put some new music into your iPod. Change can help keep your workouts fun and give you something to look forward to.

2. Your no longer getting the results you were.

The human body is a very adaptive piece of machinery. Apply stress to it and it’ll adapt over time. If the stress you’re applying becomes consistent a plateau will eventually be reached. Someone who does the same activity all the time is likely to plateau much sooner than someone who varies their workouts. Just as you can get bored by doing the same exercises, your body can also adapt to these exercises so that they don't offer the same benefits that they once did. Once more variety is the key. "Variety" means either changing something about your current routine (adding speed, distance, hills, resistance, etc.) or trying a totally different activity. If you like some consistency and don't want to change your workout each time you hit the gym, change your routine at least every 4-8 weeks (this includes incorporating changes to both your cardio and strength training exercises). This will keep your muscles challenged, your body guessing, and the results ticking along.

3. You’re hammered at the end of the sessions.

A training session should leave you invigorated and with more energy than what you started with on average throughout the day. If you feel perpetually worn out something is wrong. The two main reasons for this (assuming there is no underlying medical or psychological cause) is (i) you’re training too hard and you’ve exceeded your body’s capacity to adapt, strengthen and recover between exercise bouts and/or (ii) you’re not eating enough carbohydrate. Chronically depleted muscle glycogen stores will leave you feeling wasted.

Your options – back off for a day or two, increase your intake of carbs and see if that helps turn things around for you.

4. You need a challenge.

When you started running it was a challenge to run 2km on the treadmill in 15 minutes, now it feels like nothing. Why? You’re fitter and stronger, your body has adapted and in order to keep challenging it you need to “ramp it up”. There is an old adage in physical conditioning known as “progressive overload” which means as your body adapts you’ve got to progressively overload it with more work to keep the improvements coming. This can be done in any number of ways depending on the exercise type in question (e.g. Running faster or further, lifting more repetitions or a heavier weight). How you apply the overload principal will dictate the sort of adaptations that occur, but if you want those adaptations to continue – challenge yourself.

Changing your exercise routine whenever these signs arise will help keep your motivation high as you continue to see the improvements. Exercise should never become a chore, it should be something you look forward to doing. If it isn’t it’s time to re-evaluate what you’re doing.