Will Pe Affect My Workout Routine?

Most college classes require you to sit still for hours. Your physical education -- PE -- electives break up your day, relieve stress, and prevent the dreaded freshman 15 -- meaning a 15-lb. weight gain -- associated with a suddenly sedentary lifestyle. If you already have an established workout routine, your PE can supplement your existing program, but scheduling your personal workouts and your college classes requires careful planning.

Weight Training

Resistance training sessions require a 48- to 72-hour rest between workouts, states the weight-training guidelines for the McKinley Health Center at the University of Illinois. If you choose a weight-training elective, but you already participate in a regular resistance-training program, adjust your school and off-campus exercise schedule accordingly. Use your school program to add variety to your strength-training workouts. If you usually train for muscle endurance using weight machines, select a dumbbell and barbell class that emphasizes strength and power.

Aerobic Exercise

Many college students use a daily long run, an extended session on the cardiovascular equipment, or a choreographed aerobic class to burn calories, maintain their weight and clear their minds. If you favor endurance-oriented aerobics, high-intensity interval training may improve your overall speed, train your body to remove post-workout metabolic waste, and improve your VO2 max -- your ability to maximize oxygen use during a workout. The track and field classes, which involve short-duration, high-intensity activities -- such as the 200-m run -- provide a perfect supplement to endurance aerobics.

Athletic Skills

Your regular workout routine may keep you in shape, but chances are it doesn't improve your skill development. Use your established level of fitness to learn a new sport. Most schools offer classes in basketball, tennis, martial arts, winter sports or other activities. If the chosen sport requires a high energy and endurance level, schedule your regular workout routine on a different day of the week. Non-impact sports, such as swimming, provide cross-training for high-impact aerobic activities such as running, and non-impact sports may help you prevent overuse injuries.

Preventing Burnout

After months of performing the same movement patterns, your performance efficiency improves dramatically -- often to a point where your regular workout fails to challenge and improve your fitness level, says Frank S. Chen, M.D., of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. Cross-training shocks your body by introducing different movements, thereby adding new challenges to your muscle groups. Your body is not the only thing that benefits. Cross-training also prevents workout burnout and boredom. When looking at your school's PE electives, think outside the box and choose activities in which you don't normally participate. Yoga, Pilates and dance classes are just some of the available alternatives.