How often do you change your workout routine?

[Dragon Warrior]

I have a friend who changes his workout every two weeks and has seen incredible results. For example, with chest, he might do the barbell bench press, and maybe the incline first two weeks. Then maybe do dumbells, cables, and superset with pushups. Then the next two weeks he'll do hammer strenght machine work and dips. Now this kid is working out with 120lb dumbbells and benching well over 300lbs.

anyone know if his strength has anything to do with how he changes his routine every couple weeks?

[ElPietro]

It wouldn't have much to do with it at all. In fact he would probably get stronger if he actually stuck with something for a while. Whenever you change exercises and have big gains in strength it isn't your muscle getting stronger, but your bodies motor skills and nervous system adapting to the new movement. After your body has adapted and your gains slow down do you start working fully on overall muscle strength. I've posted a more detailed answer on this process somewhere in here. If you do a search you'll prolly find it.

[IronFist]

Traditionally they say that you're supposed to stick with an exercise until you stop making gains, which can be between 2 to 3 months. Then you're supposed to change things up.

But, sometimes even just changing the order you do stuff can have an effect.

It also depends on what your goals are. Are you a bodybuilder? Powerlifter? Martial Artist looking to add some raw strength? Each of these trains very differently from one another and so what they do in the gym, how they cycle their workouts, and how they change things up will vary greatly.

If your friend is naturally strong, and just started working out, then his gains are probably due to the newbie factor. In some cases, when you FIRST start lifting weights (I mean first time in your life ever) your strength can practically double in a few months time. The more you work out, the slower the gains come, and so you have to make modifications to your program to help these gains along.

But it might be that... I mean, a 300lb bench isn't really that much. Haha, it's a lot for me, but I know some endomorphs ::coughfatpeoplecough:: who could bench 225 lbs for 10 reps the first time they ever worked out. Fùck, it took me like 2 and a half years to be able to bench 225, but my point is, a newbie with a bench of 225 could easily get up to 300 with just basic training.

Anyway, before I get even more off subject, I should stop. I hope this helped.

Iron

[tri2bmt]

I tend to have a couple core exercises and then throw things in to balance it out and add variety.
Right now my core strength exercises are deadlifts, rows, pullups, and squats. I add various push ups and other exercises along with lots of variety for the abs.

[ElPietro]

Oh forgot about this thread...

Don't change exercises unless you are absolutely not making any gains...so if you go 3 weeks and you can't even add a couple pounds extra on your major lifts then think about changing things up. Changing the order of the exercises you do will only pre-exhaust your muscles in a different order.

You will not get maximal growth until you've gone through the initial strength gain phase. Your nervous system hasn't adapted to fire off motors to recruit 100% of your muscle fibre. Train to failure to hit your type II fast twitch muscle fibre which has the greatest propensity for hypertrophy. I've stated all the reasoning behind all this somewhere else in here. If you have 10 minutes to print this out I'm going to paste a great article I've read that deals with this question in a better way. It's a bit of a read but you will know exactly what's going on with your body during a workout if you read it all...

I'll post below...

[ElPietro]

Ok mofos read or print and read this article and you won't have to post anymore questions on this topic...

Exercise Variety

How often should you switch your exercises around? Well, lets take a look at what happens, physiologically, when you change your exercises around.

When you first start doing an exercise it is “new” to you body in a sense that it has never learned it. From the first time you use this exercise to roughly 4-8 weeks (the more complicated the exercise the longer this takes), the nervous system “learns” the exercise by optimizing itself to the movement primarily through altering intra and inter muscular coordination. For this reason you experience rapid progress when first using an exercise then as you continue using the exercise progress becomes slower and slower. At this point many people recommend switching up your routine to spark new progress, this is the exact opposite of what should be done! After this initial optimization the nervous system will have trained itself to recruit muscle fibers maximally in the given movement, in other words only AFTER the initial rapid progress can a muscle be maximally stimulated! By frequently varying exercises in your routine you are taking a step back in your quest for muscle growth. Just so you don’t have to take only my word for it, check this out:

“Bosco, C., Rusko, H., & Hirvonen, J. (1984), entitled "Neural Training in Strength". "This investigation showed biological adaptation to strength training occurs in both neurogenic and myogenic muscle components. Neural changes appear first and improve technique, increase the firing rate of motor units, recruit additional motor units, and improve the synchronization of motor units. Morphological [muscle growth] adaptations occur later and only after neural adaptations are exhausted.

Implication: Initial strength training is purely a motor skill development activity where the central nervous system harnesses existing resources to perform the strength activities more efficiently and to exploit the structures of muscle more effectively. Discrete skills learning of this nature will not transfer/generalize to other activities in highly skilled performers".

It's clear that the initial rapid strength gains associated with switching exercises around is nothing more than neural adaptation, muscle growth is not the primary contributor. What happens after this, is the important thing. After the initial strength gains caused by neural adaptation, the majority of additional strength gains come in the form of muscle super compensation.

This is not to say you should never vary your routine, after a while using a specific movement the nervous system and muscular system will accommodate to the movement, and progress will come to a complete stop. When this occurs changing the exercise for another equally effective and similar movement is what should be done. By equally effective I mean that you wouldn’t switch a squat with a leg extension, but switching a back squat with a front squat would be enough to recruit slightly different motor units in slightly different patterns consequently kick-starting progress but not so much of a change that the nervous system has to completely de-optimize to the previously accommodated exercise. The reason behind switching to a similar exercise has to do with one of the major principles in exercise physiology: Specificity. Specificity refers to neuromuscular optimization in a given movement that doesn’t necessarily carry-over to other similar movements of the kind, basically that if you want a big bench then you perform bench presses and not dips; if you want a big squat then you perform squats and not leg presses. So, you want to switch to an exercise different enough to recruit slightly different motor units, but not so different that your entire neuromuscular pathways have to be reconstructed, so to speak (this would cause you to lose ability in the other exercise, defeating the purpose of going through the optimization period in the first place). Basically, if muscle growth is your goal you should stick to the same exercises and routine for as long as you can progress with it, and not when progress slows because the 4-8 week optimization period has completed.

[ElPietro]

(continued)

Different forms of variation: Of course switching up exercises isn’t the only thing you can do, so let’s take a look at what other variations accomplish:

Switching exercise order: This one really doesn’t accomplish anything. The only thing this does is alter the state of fatigue you are in when doing each exercise. Except for in special cases of prioritization you should always perform the most complicated (and most effective) exercises first in your routine, otherwise you are setting yourself up for injury .

Switching rep range: For pure hypertrophy, there is no need to do this either. If you follow the guidelines in part on of this series then you are taking advantage of all effective rep ranges already.

Increasing training volume: This one has some merits. If you reach a point where one or two body parts (note - body parts, not just exercises) are not progressing but everything else is, you are most likely in a state of irrational hypertrophy (when actin and myosin density outgrows mitochondria density resulting in an ATP debt in the muscle cell, halting progress). To combat this, increasing volume and decreasing rest periods is the way to go. This type of training is ideal for increasing mitochondria density while maintaining actin and myosin, which will solve this problem within 2-4 weeks. You should only do this on the specific body part that is no longer progressing, not your whole body, and for no more than 4 weeks. You also may want lower volume/frequency when the stress of daily life is greater, you are on a below maintenance calorie diet (i.e. training to lose fat), if you don’t have enough time, etc. If you come to a point that your entire body has stopped progressing and growing then you have an over-trained central nervous system (CNS). The CNS can become over trained by doing too many sets, to high of loads for too long, or just productively training at all for too long without a break. When this time comes you should just take some time off - 1-2 weeks to give your CNS a break. When you come back to the gym you will stronger, refreshed, motivated and progressing again.

Varying exercise intensity: As far as training to build muscle goes, there are only a few times when this is advisable. Such as after a layoff from training and just getting back into things, CNS burn-out due to failure training (in which case taking a week off will solve the problem as well, but discontinuing failure training will solve the problem and perhaps allow more progress in the long run than simply taking time off), higher stress levels, lower calorie intake, etc, etc. Note that when speaking from a bodybuilding perspective I don’t like to define exercise as intensity as the percent of ones one rep maximum (1RM), rather I define it as a degree of effort given in a set. For example, if you can perform 10 reps with a certain weight and you only perform 8, you trained with 80% intensity.

Progression - Micro loading >>



The main reason a trainee reaches a point of stagnation is not their training program; it’s their loading techniques. Most trainees try to put an additional 5lbs on the bar each week as a means of overload. This will work for a short period of time, but eventually you won’t be able to keep this up. Think about it, that would mean each of your lifts would go up 260lbs per year forever! Impossible. So, what is the solution to this problem? A technique called micro loading. Research has indicated that an individual cannot differentiate between a load weighing one percent more than a load lifted last week. What this means is that the 200lbs you lifted last week will feel exactly the same as the 201lbs you lifted this week. This will allow for long term consistent progress, and long term consistent muscle growth. Now you are probably thinking “One pound a week? That’s nothing!”. In the short term, no it is not phenomenal progress, but think in the long term for a second. An additional one pound a week to your squat for an entire year means an extra 52lbs to your squat each year! For an advanced trainee, that is great progress. If you are a beginner then you can progress much faster than this and you should take advantage. But, when you reach a point where that extra 5lbs to your bench press is just too much, step back, take a deep breath, muster up some patience, and try micro loading. I guarantee you will continue progressing. Of course, eventually, you will reach a point where progress stops regardless of using micro loading. This is when I recommend you take some time off from the gym, go home and rest. When you come back to the gym, start with using weights that are less than your maximums. Primarily Stuart McRobert has popularized this approach. For your first workout back in the gym, use 90% of the weight you peaked at, next workout 95%, then 97.5%, then you re-continue adding weight incrementally. This approach is very effective, but it is not the only way to do things.

You could also use a different approach, the Soviet and Bulgarian approach of exercise variation. This approach is a means to combat stagnation by switching from one exercise to another, equally effective and mechanically similar exercise. For example, switch a Barbell bench press for a Dumbbell bench press. Enough variation to recruit different motor units, and kick-start progress, but not enough of a change that the nervous system will be severely less optimized to perform a Barbell bench press (Specificity principle). Remember, only use this technique when a point of total stagnation is reached, not when you notice progress start to slow - when it completely stops.

Application:

You should stick to the same routine for as long as you can progress with it, and when progression is no longer possible then certain (above) variations can be made to solve the problem. Depending on the situation the variance you implement will be more or less appropriate than another. For example, if your entire body has stagnated in progression and growth, then your CNS is likely burnt-out; either taking some time off from the gym or lowering exercise intensity for a short period will solve the problem. Perhaps only one exercise isn’t progressing, but other exercises for that part are progressing nicely, then accommodation (muscular and neural) is likely the cause, and just switching that exercise with another equally effective and mechanically similar exercise will get you going again. Another possibility is that only one body part has stagnated but the rest of your body is still plugging along well, this is likely a result of irrational hypertrophy in the body part, and by increasing volume and decreasing rest for a short period (2-3 weeks) you will continue to progress again after going back to your normal lower volume, higher intensity workouts.

Intensity

There are different definitions of training intensity; coaches and trainers usually have different definitions. I define exercise intensity as the degree of muscular effort performed in a single set. In other words, how hard you try (doing 8 reps with a weight you could get 10 reps if you gave it you all is considered training with 80% intensity). In my opinion, this is the most practical definition to describe exercise intensity. My recommendation is that you take every working set (excluding warm ups), to concentric failure. In order for your weight training sessions to be maximally productive, you have to fatigue as many motor units (muscle fibers) as possible without over training. By training to failure while doing the least possible volume still achieving your desired results you are doing just that, let’s take another look a typical bodybuilding set taken to failure:

You pick up the weight and perform one rep; at this point some of the IIA’s are recruited while the IIB’s have not yet been recruited. On rep two, some more IIA’s are recruited and fatigued, while the IIB’s start to pick up the slack that the fatigued IIA’s left. By rep three more IIA’s are fatigued and consequently more IIB’s are recruited, then you go on to perform 3 more reps. Now, as you go for rep seven, all of the IIA’s are fatigued, and all of your IIB’s are recruited but are not yet twitching at maximum frequency - they still have some gas left. As you go for rep 8, all of your IIB’s are firing at maximum frequency, all of your IIB’s are completely fatigued, and finally your IIB’s are completely fatigued. You have just reached momentary muscular failure.

Now, if you stop short of muscular failure it means that you left a portion of the Type IIB fibers not stimulated. Remember - Type IIB fibers have the largest potential for growth. It is absolutely essential that you stimulate these fibers if you are to reach your maximum muscle growth potential. If you do not train to failure, the high threshold fibers (IIB’s) will not be maximally stimulated, as they will not have been required to "pick up the slack" after the low threshold fibers (IIA’s) fatigued. By stopping your set short of failure, you are stopping muscle growth short, because the muscle fibers that contribute the most to muscular growth are not stimulated to a large enough degree for hypertrophy. This is not to say that you can’t grow without training to failure, you could increase the number of sets during each training session, and fatigue the low threshold fibers in the early sets, and then as they become fatigued the high threshold will be recruited in order for you to be able to keep going. But, this would add unnecessary training time, and as we established earlier, you should always train as little as possible, while still achieving the desired results.

[ElPietro]

(continued, last little part I promise)

The "Cool Down"

There is absolutely no need to perform a "cool down" post weight training. The only thing you should do to "cool down" is stretch, if your aim is to increase flexibility. Well, I guess you could consider drinking a post-training shake a "cool down" of sorts. Doing additional sets with low intensity after your training will only eat into your recovery time, and add useless training time.

Summary >>







Well there you have it, practical application of bodybuilding science, that you can use to get big and strong. Just to wrap up all the lessons learned in this thing, let’s establish some guidelines:

*Focus your training around compound/multi joint exercises, but supplement these exercises with single joint movements.

*Use a progressive warm-up, but don’t use high enough poundage that you are fatigued before you even start training for growth.

*Perform sets of 5-7 with a 3-1-1 tempo, and sets of 10-15 with a 4-0-2 tempo for each muscle group.

*Always use a full range of motion, unless you have muscle imbalances or specific weaknesses in a movement.

*Perform the least amount of training, while still achieving your desired results.

*Train as frequently as possible while progressing to your maximum potential.

*Rest long enough between sets so that ATP has been replenished, which in general is three minutes, but may vary slightly among individuals.

*Exercise variation should only be implemented if needed - when progress comes to a complete stop. Different variations are necessary to solve different problems.

*Progression should be taken slowly and steadily, rather than rapidly and sporadic.

*Unless other factors limit your abilities, train to concentric failure in trying to build muscle.

*When you are done training, leave the gym and get some food in you right away, and don’t waste time “cooling down” in the gym.

I think it is also necessary to note that physiology and exercise science is not the end-all be-all when it comes to training, empirical evidence is a very important thing to consider, but due to variances in genetics, individual perceptions, drug use, etc empirical evidence has to be taken with a grain of salt, but definitely not ignored.


As Tudor Bompa would say:


“Let science guide us, and personal experience discern us”

Key Terms:

Accommodation - Decrease in the response of a biological object to a continued stimulus.

Actin - one of two proteins in muscle filament, the other being myosin.

Adaptation - the adjustment of an organism to its environment.

Anabolism - synthesis of simple substances to form complex ones, the opposite of catabolism.

Catabolism - disintegration of complex substances into simple ones.

Concentric - the shortening of a muscle during contraction, the positive portion of a lift.

Eccentric - the lengthening of a muscle during contraction, the negative portion of a lift.

Frequency - the time period between workouts.

Hyperplasia - an increase in muscle cell number.

Hypertrophy (of muscle) - an increase in the size of muscle cells.

Mitochondria - an organelle (“little organ”) found within cells and is involved in generating ATP via aerobic processes.

Motor Unit - a motor neuron and the muscle fiber it innervates.

Muscle Fiber - a skeletal muscle fiber. (see sarcomere)

Myofibril - a longitudinal unit of muscle fiber containing thick and thin contractile filaments.

Myosin - contractile protein in the thick filament of a myofibril.

Overload - training load exceeding normal level.

Periodization - a division of the training season into smaller intervals (periods of training) with the ultimate goal of reaching the best performance results during the primary competition(s) of the season.

Progression - the progressive increase of resistance as strength gains are made.

Repetition (reps) - the number of times a movement is performed in a single exercise set.

Sarcomere - the repeated contractile unit of a myofibril.

Sarcoplasm - tissue that supplies energy to the muscle or is involved with the neural drive.

Strength (Muscular strength) - the ability to overcome external resistance by muscular effort.

Super compensation - An increase of biochemical substance content above the initial level after a restoration period following one or several workouts.

Thick filament - a myofilament made of myosin.

Thin filament - a myofilament made of actin.

Training session (workout) - a lesson comprising exercise and rest periods.

Training Volume - The amount of work performed in one training session.

Type I Muscle fiber - Optimized for fatigue resistance.

Type II Muscle fibers - Optimized for maximal force production.

[Apprentice]

Great post Pietro...


But i read that you should wait an hour before eating after working out(and before)...because Digestion takes body energy, as does recoverying from a workout(and workout itself)...and u should let these things do it on their own...is there a reason to eat right after you workout? And what would you reccomend to eat?

[hughes]

*Perform sets of 5-7 with a 3-1-1 tempo, and sets of 10-15 with a 4-0-2 tempo for each muscle group.

I feel like an idiot for asking this, but what does the tempo numbers mean? I haven't really researched much about tempo when it comes to weights.

[ElPietro]

Ok I only posted an article that I felt would answer all the questions...don't give me credit for the content...although it basically goes into more detail of things I've posted in the past.

Hughes I never really concerned myself with tempo in the past but I believe it is the ratio of time lifting/time at the top of lift/negative lift time...or time you are lowering the weight.

I will check further into this and re-post if I'm incorrect.

[Apprentice]

I got ya Pietro...


Lets say the numbers are 1-1-1....positive phase(lifting) u take 1 second to do the motion, then there is a 1 second pause, then the negative phase(lowering) takes 1 second as well...

if its 4-0-2...lift for 4 seconds(long time), then dont pause, continuously moving and lower it for 2 seconds...i always heard the negative phase should be twice as long as the positive or atleast equal tho, but thats what tempo means...

[hughes]

Ok thanks guys imma try that tempo regime tomorrow when I'm doing weights.

[ElPietro]

I've never felt that the negative part of the lift coupled with full lifts are all that effective. You can do negatives on their own where someone spots the load to the pinnacle and then you control the weight on the way down. The reason i say this is because you can hold a lot more weight on the way down then pushing it up...using bench as an example. So the extra time under tension for the negative half of the lift I feel isn't much added benefit. But if it helps you mentally in your lift or teaches you better control than by all means...

Slowing down your negative can have a benefit if you are the type that does reps too quickly and just bounces the bar off your chest etc...