Virtually any positive can be turned into a negative.

Think back to the 50s and the 60s and all the positives connected with the car. Vehicles were monstrous and powerful works of art that were relatively inexpensive. Gasoline was cheap and plentiful. An ever-expanding highway system provided a type of access and freedom drivers had never experienced before.Who could possibly say anything negative about car transportation in the U.S. back then?Canadian educator Marshall McLuhan, author of The Gutenberg Galaxy, Understanding Media, and the guy given credit for the phrases "the medium is the message" and "global village." He warned that this rapidly expanding car culture would choke itself to death figuratively through traffic jams and literally from air pollution.Think about Marshall's admonition the next time you sit inside your car outside suburban sprawl going nowhere fast and feel your body release the stuff that makes your heart race, your hands thump the wheel, and your mouth spew out profanity after profanity.Now consider the positives of the local health club.Without it, many adults just wouldn't work out. They lack the ambition needed to go down into the basement or out to the garage and exercise on their own.But too often for too many, the reason to go to the health club becomes less and less about getting a quality workout and more and more about getting a chance to socialize. Or read your favorite magazine while you pedal a stationary bicycle at a pace only slightly faster than the crawl to the three traffic lights on your daily commute.Another negative to health club workouts is the inherent desire to impress others. While it seems to be mainly teenagers who place a ridiculous number of 45-pound plates onto the leg press and then perform about a sixth of the proper range of motion, adults attempt to impress in other ways.To use more weight on an exercise like for barbell curls, for example, they'll lift the bar in the easiest manner, not the best way to work the targeted muscles: the biceps.If you do lift weights as part of your exercise regiment, close your eyes and envision how you perform the aforementioned exercise. Do you begin the motion with a roll of the shoulders? If so, you're not working the biceps at the moment. The trapezius and deltoid muscles and even the lats in your back are initiating the movement.Now do this. Stand up, allow your arms to hang naturally, and then consciously move them downward. With the arms in this downward position and your elbows remaining fixed, squeeze your fists together, keep squeezing, and now perform the biceps curl motion.Now you should feel tension in the biceps for the full range of motion, and working through the full range of motion is the only way to work any muscle to its maximum.Unfortunately, using a full range of motion (along with the isometric tension created by the fist squeeze) dramatically decreases the amount of weight you should use. Since health clubbers tend not to want to lift less weight in front of others, the positive of having other lifters around becomes a negative.But there's a saving grace to the positives of a workout invariably transforming into negatives. It's that any change to a routine is good temporarily.So that super-focused person who lifts in his basement and performs the biceps curl motion in the strictest possible way will actually benefit temporarily by allowing his form to wane a bit so he can increase the amount of weight and change the way the muscles are stimulated.The different form of stimulation spurs on new muscle growth.In short, when it comes to working out, different is good. At least temporarily.I learned this lesson after taking a power/cadence test on the bicycle a few years ago. The man administering the test asked me what sorts of workouts I was currently doing. While he was impressed at their length and intensity, he frowned when I told him that my workouts hadn't changed in years.He suggested an alternate workout that seemed more geared for cyclists who sprint on the track rather than those who race long distances against the clock or hilly terrain. When I offered that, he agreed, but added that my body had adapted to my old regiment. Any change performed with the proper intensity would create improvement.He was right temporarily.Within a week of beginning the new workouts, I was time trialing much better. I did so for about a month.And then the different workout lost its magic, but guess what? The time away from my traditional workout allowed for additional improvement when I returned to it.I encourage you to apply the lessons from these stories to whatever form of exercise you do. If you tend to walk at a constant, brisk pace four times a week for 45 minutes on relatively flat terrain, break the pattern temporarily.For instance, do a walk where you go as fast as you can on a new, hillier course. Or decide to do one walk a week on any surface other than the one your body's accustomed to.If you really want to be sore for a few days, walk your normal course but forcefully contract your glutes with every stride. Years ago, I talked my mother into trying that, and her glutes ached for a week.