How Often Should You Vary Your Workouts?
To see the best results for an exercise program, the key is to vary up your routine. The body is very good at adapting to the demands you place on it. In about 4 to 6 weeks, your body is typically completely used to the routine that you are putting it through. If you do not increase weight or vary up exercises, reps, or sets , then you are not going to see the results you are trying to achieve. The body’s main goal is to complete the work you place on it while conserving as many calories as possible. A constantly changing routine is key to success.
Calorie Conservation
It might be the 2020’s, but our bodies are still stuck in the era of cavemen. We currently have food abundance, but prior to a hundred years ago, this was not the case. Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution has taught our bodies that food is scarce. Therefore, when we exercise, our bodies figure out the movement patterns we do most and puts us in a position for optimal calorie conservation. This causes us to burn less calories over time while doing the same thing. It is also the principle behind SAIDs (Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands). Basically our body adapts to the stresses we put on it. This is why you have to vary your routine. If you do the same thing over and over, then the body masters that routine and you do not get the same results that you did initially.
Types of Goals to achieve
Strength - Increasing strength is one of the first goals everyone thinks of when they start a routine. What people do not realize is that there is a specific definition for strength gain. Most people lump strength and endurance together because working on your endurance will increase strength, but that has more to do with neurological improvements. I talk about neurological gains in my post “Using Exercise Physiology to Determine What Is The Best Home Exercise Equipment.” True strength gains are actually achieved with high weights and low reps (1 - 5 reps per set) with a lot of rest in between sets. A popular routine for bodybuilders or people into building strength is the 5x5 program (5 sets at a 5 rep maximum) with 3 - 5 minutes of rest between sets
Hypertrophy - This is a fancy way of saying building size. And this type of routine is the go to routine for bodybuilders or people looking to put on muscle. A hypertrophy routine is a hybridization of a strength and endurance routine. When building size, you have two ways to do it: 1) low weight high reps with short rest and 2) high weight low reps with long rest. Hypertrophy takes advantage of both principles of muscle gain. The main reason is when you lift heavy, you recruit more muscle fibers in what is called wave summation during a lift. This causes you to be able to do more reps at a lower weight because you are more warmed up. If you want to try this, do a sprint routine before you do squats and compare how many reps you can do versus when you do a progressive squat warm up.
Endurance - Sub-maximal work that is in a range of 12-15 reps is generally considered to be endurance exercises. The main influence on what makes an exercise of 12 - 15 reps an endurance exercise versus a strength exercise is the energy system used. Most endurance lifts are longer than 30 seconds, but less than 2 minutes, making the primary energy source anaerobic glycolysis. If done at the correct weight and rep range, this type of exercise can lead to some muscle hypertrophy.
Power - A power routine is about optimal force production. This is a high explosive regimen and should be observed by a professional. When done properly, the force generation is calculated for every lift and when the force that someone is generating drops, the exercise session is complete. CrossFit follows these principles, but as I said previously, if these exercises are not monitored properly, it can lead to injury.
Corrective Exercise/Flexibility - One of my favorite routines is the corrective exercise routine. This routine is all about optimizing length-tension relationships in the muscles. I talked about muscle movement in another post, "" that discusses the sliding filament theory. With the sliding filament theory, there is an optimal resting length for muscles to create the most force possible. Doing core and posture exercises help bring the muscle into better balance.
How to Plan a routine for variety
There are many combinations of types of routines you can do to reach your goal. The key is knowing what your goal is and what type of routine combination will get you to your goal. As seen above, there are a lot of routines to cycle through to achieve your goal. The routine, or phase, that you choose is going to be based on the timing of when you want to “peak.” A peak is the best shape you want to achieve. For athletes this might be mid-late season so they can be in top form for the play-offs.
Once you have established your goal and peak time, then you can start planning out your routine, factoring in cycles. You are going to break your cycles into either a Quarterly, Semi-Annual, or Annual plan. This is a time consuming process, so I typically do Annual programs because once I set it, I don’t want to think about it until I am at the end. Big chunks of time that I just mentioned are called Macro Cycles. If your goal is a 12 week Hypertrophy program, then you have a 3 month Macro Cycle. These macro cycles help you figure out how much time you are going to dedicate to a phase of your cycle. Which makes planning your Micro Cycles easier.
Micro Cycles are individual days and weeks of training. You see this a lot on Instagram posts where people have pictures that list out the days of the week and what muscles groups they are going to work each day. After the week is planned you can plan out the individual workouts for each day. This helps organize your thoughts and goals and keeps your body challenged.
Conclusion
If you are looking at this and thinking “This is a lot of work.” Then you are right. Any good trainer is constantly balancing your goals with what phases you should be in for when you want to do your activity. While simultaneously working in whatever muscle imbalances you need to correct. This is why I always recommend someone works with a trainer. Even if you do not want to pay for continuous training, you can ask for a plan to follow and do weekly, monthly, or quarterly check-ins based on your discipline to get the work in properly.