Set Your Own Baseline For Effective Training In The New Year

This is the year you’re going to get in shape. That’s your resolution and you even wrote it down and pinned it to the fridge. So you’re watching what you eat and six days into the new year you’re a regular at the gym but you’re no expert. Short of hiring a trainer, how will you know if and when it’s time to change up your routine?

Researchers have devised a good way to figure out if it's time for a new workout and they published their findings in the journal PLOS ONE.

The technique is as simple as climbing some stairs. They say climb some stairs, check your pulse to get a baseline number and after a month of exercising, do the test again.  If your pulse rate hasn't gone down, you might not be responding to the exercises your doing and researchers suggest you consider a different type of workout.

Researchers found, for example, that people who didn't respond well to endurance training did respond to interval training, and vice versa. (Fox)