Posted on March 08, 2016 by Jenny Cromack
One of the big questions we get asked as personal trainers is how often should you change your workout? On one hand lots of variety tends to favour a more holistic development, however lower levels of variety ensures we see progression on the movements you’re currently working on. There is no real correct answer here as its very specific to the individual, but here are some general guidelines.
Beginners Trainees:
- Beginners should focus on completing the same fundamental exercises and mastering the simple movement patterns before progressing on. This includes being able to squat, press overhead, hinge at the hip, and complete simple bilateral lower body variations such as the lunge. Progressing on without mastering this is like building a castle on a swamp. At a minimum you should be looking at 8 weeks of developing these movements before moving on.
- In relation to repetitions you’re going to be surprised to hear its normally a medium rep range irrespective of the load. Anything above 12 repetitions in my experience and technique and form seems to collapse down, anything below 8 repetitions and we don’t get enough stimulus. Once the movement patterns have become mastered we can look to increase load and drop repetitions, likewise we can decrease load and increase volume.
Intermediate Trainees:
- Once we’ve mastered those fundamental movements we can start to expand and increase the pool of exercises. During this period we should look to change exercises every 6-8 weeks. This provides enough stimulus to ingrain the new movement pattern building on the fundamental movements principals.
- Rep ranges should be goal specific now, be it strength, hypertrophy, muscular endurance or even power.
Advanced Trainees:
- Once you’ve trained for a significant amount of time (i.e 2-3 years consistently) 6-8 weeks is often too long to maintain a program. Neural development often stagnates after 2-3 weeks at this level and therefore requires frequent subtle changes, this could be as simple as changing the angle of a bench press, or the grip of a bent over row. Subtle frequent progressive changes can make huge differences at this level. For example 12 weeks of lower body strength training, might look like the following:
- Front Squat 2 weeks
- Walking Lunges 2 weeks
- Back Squats 2 weeks
- Bulgarian Split squat 2 weeks
- Trap Bar Deadlift 2 weeks
- Box Squats 2 weeks
- Rep ranges will be completely specific and follow some form of rep scheme progression. i.e it would be unlikely that you complete the same rep and set scheme session after session, they will be building upon one another.
Don’t fall into the trap of doing every exercise under the sun, get good at the basics and build a solid foundation.