Changing Your Training Routine
by Vladi
Last Update On December 17, 2011
Changing your training routine is extremely important. When I first started training people were always saying to me: “You have to be consistent with your program without changing it every few weeks.” While this makes sense to a certain point too many people stick with the same routine for too long. The truth is that both - not changing your routine and changing it each week can be as equally detrimental to progress.
When you should change your routine?
The short answer: when it stops working. In the past I used to stick with the same routine for 4-6 months and than change it. Of course over the course I will tweak here and there, introduce a new exercise but in the end of the day the heart of the routine will be the same. I'm no longer doing that because I'm not seeing the progress I would like to see. Your body adapts to your training and while you can sort of overcome this by adding more weight it's not always possible. You can't add weight every workout otherwise we would all be deadlifting 1000 pounds in a year. Sometimes it's good to make a change and do something different.
For example I like to focus on weak area of my body for a short period of time and than go back to the old or improved routine. Let's say that you have weak quadriceps. You train them intensely for 3 to 5 weeks and than you switch back to more balanced routine in order to give a chance to your quadriceps and knee joint to finally rest. This is the edge of over-training and I don't recommend doing it for more than 5 maybe 6 weeks in order to avoid injuries. At the same time you have to keep your training for the rest of your body to a minimum and even reduce the volume a little bit. Just cut all non-essential exercises for the duration of quadriceps cycle.
Why this works and helps you get out of the hole?
Imagine a calm and steady river. It's the same every day. Now put some kind of a bulkhead and watch more and more water accumulate. When you remove the bulkhead the rivers increases its speed for a while until it settles down eventually. That's what we are doing here: focus on a weak body part for a few weeks than go back to the old stuff and watch the muscle increase in size. This is a good way to see some quick gains.
However the number one reason to change your routines is: it's not longer working. Eventually everything stops working. Remember your first day at work - you were nervous and felt like everybody around you is something special and what not. Few months later you feel more humble and know the dirty little secrets of the people around you. In other words you got used to it and does not excite you anymore. You need something else to make your day. In our case we need something else to stimulate progress.
"Ok. Bro. But how do I know if a program is not working. Maybe I should just wait a few more months?"
NO. Just set a goal and if you don't see at least a small result in 6-12 weeks it's not working. Yes, that's right.
Example: Your current focus are arms. (You can replace arms with other body-part it's the same principle). You train for 6-12 weeks and you see no growth. In that case something is wrong. It maybe your training or your nutrition. You will have to examine both.
However obviously in 6-12 weeks you can't gain that much muscle BUT I'm talking about small results - not gaining 3 inches on your arms or whatever. 1/2 will be plenty.
Conclusion: If the routine you are doing is not showing slight results in the right direction after six weeks something is messed up. Don't waste more time and find the problem. Since this article is on a different subject I won't go into details about the possible problems but in general training is usually the biggest.
"Hmmm...but Scooby says that 6-12 weeks are nothing and you can't achieve that much. U mAD?"
Look, I'm not talking about going from 13 inches arms to 16 in six weeks. I'm talking about going from 13 to 13.2-14 inches in 12 weeks or so. Similar progress is possible if that's your main goal at the moment and if after six weeks your arms or whatever is still the same size something is off because this is plenty of time for a well trained and nourished muscle to show some love and grow a little. If not - it's time for a change.
I remember once when my goal was to add X inches on my legs. It didn't happen because I didn't change my previous routine. In other words you should change your routine according to your present goals and if you are not seeing small results in six weeks you won't see any in one year if you don't fix the problem.
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