When to change your routine

[MuscleScience]

I have noticed a lot of questions regarding when to change up workout routines. I will try to briefly explain the concept of peroidization.

Peroidization simple explained is the concept of changing one's exercise routine in-order to prevent the body from adapting to exercise thus causing a plateau in gains. Most peroidization programs are based on 4 periods a year changing once every three months. Why three months you may ask, well according to most of the current and landmark literature. It takes the body about 12 weeks to adapt fully to any new exercise routine. This means that after the 12 weeks the body has adapted (become use to) the current stimulus that its been exposed to. This adaptation causes the body to no longer grow or improve. This goes for resistance training along with both anaerobic and aerobic exercise. What this all means is that if your on a new exercise program after 3 months it will no longer produce the same response in the body as it did when you first started it.

How do I get my body to respond after it adapts?

This is simple you just change your exercise routine to something that the body hasnt seen before. For example I work with lots of endurance athletes, one period maybe an off-season building program. Which would consist of a runner running 90 miles a week with 4 days of weights. The next period which would be contest prep would consist of 120 miles a week with 2 days of weights for maintenance only. Then we would of course have a rebuild and rest period followed by a gradual build up period.

Now of course the three month rule isnt really a rule its more of a guideline. Some programs for individuals will run only 8 weeks some will run longer. Everybody's body is different thats why its important to listen to your body and know when a change is needed. I have wrote programs for athletes that run as long as 15 weeks which is the extreme end in my opinion. If you want to learn more about peroidization and its applications the two best places to look are the websites for ACSM and NSCA.

Thanks and hope this helps

MS

[MuscleScience]

nobody?

[Getinbgr]

What if you routinely change regimen? such as rotation?

[MuscleScience]

The main concept of periodizations is the idea of training specificity. For example if your a basketball player and your coach wants you to put on 20 lbs of muscle during the offseason then you would have 4 different periods with specific goals to achieve during each period which would probably be something like this. Offseason(rest and recovery), Strenght and growth, Preseason (explosive and endurance training) and finally in-season maintence. If however your goal remains the same year-round say to build muscle. One would simple change the reps and workout intesity throughout the year. So you may not have a "distinct" peroid goal. But you would however have to changer your routine on occasion to keep your body from adapting to any exercise regime that your on. Rotations method is pretty similar and comes from the same line of reasoning, if im correct on what your refering to then instead of the same exact routine for 3 months you alter routines more frequently and rotate back to the program after 3 or 4 weeks depending on how many rotations you have set up. Am I correct on that?

[Random]

For me i like to keep the heavy basic exercises the same as i can mark progress from wk to wk, i normally change all my secondary exercises from wk to wk and totally change my split every 8 wks...

CD

[MuscleScience]

bump

[C_Bino]

I think these things can just cause people to worry too much. Really all of these different styles get people way too caught up in what day they are one or how many weeks they are into it or oh how many reps am I doing today? Damn, just get in the gym and train your ass off, dont do the same crap all the time and you will be fine.

Good post and all, but I think when noobs come along they look at things like this and get way too caught up in it. Same with the info about reps and sets. If you are really dedicated etc you dont even count reps, you dont need to. And you definitely dont need to count the number of weeks until you change your routine.

I mean in your post you say 15 weeks is extreme. Well I have been on my current routine for about 8 months. Feel fantastic and look fantastic. Growing better than ever.

[MuscleScience]

Bino,

But like you said you are constantly changing things. When for example an elite level athlete does a program he has a specific goal and timeframe were everything needs to be accomplished. They have to do very specific exercise and workout routines to maximize physical adaptation and motor skill corrdination. Studies have shown that after 12 weeks of the SAME routine that the body has fully adapted to the exercise and will no longer be stimulated by that same exact routine.

This is great for people who are complete newbies to lifting because they generally know nothing about what to do and when to do things. One of the most common questions I get is when do I need to change my routine or why have my gains stopped. Most of the time I take a look at there routine wether is wieghts or cross training, plyos, ect. They have been doing the only routine and exercises they know how to do for months and months and months.

And I completely agree with you about people getting way into all this Dogg crapp and HIIT training schemes. For some reason people seem to think that there is this magic workout routine that will make them superhuman and things like that. Its as you said getting into the gym and getting consistant and dedicated. I cant stress enought how a consistant routine no matter what it is works. Consistancy is the magic in my opinion, to tell you the truth I read a couple of pretty good papers that came out in 04 in two different journals that showed that people who perform only one set of exercise to failure once a week showed the exact same increase in muscle mass and strenght as did the groups that did the traditional 3 sets of 10 rep scheme.
I know this is going to piss people off to read this but it seems to be true because its been replicated in other studies.

Just my 2 cents, the thing about the exercise field is that it changes so fast and I dont think anyone person can ever be right about any of this stuff. Because most of our common knowledge on this stuff is based of tradition and not science. That includes the scientist that think up new studies. If you look at european or russian workout routines most of there stuff is radically different.

[MuscleScience]

Oh wanted to add that Im really freaking bored right now to. As the super long last post indicates.