If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

The other day I was talking with an athlete who was extremely frustrated with the results he had been getting in his training.

 

His squat hadn’t budged in two months, his deadlift had improved by 10 lbs. at best, and his bench had actually REGRESSED to a previously set PR.

 

He asked me to look over his training plan, and although I couldn’t say much without knowing more about his goals, strengths, weaknesses, etc., the one thing that stood out was that he drastically changed his training variables (sets, reps, exercises, etc.) every 4 weeks.

 

This definitely isn’t uncommon, and there isn’t anything wrong with changing your training plan every 4 weeks if you have a legitimate reason to do so.

 

But when asked why HE changes variables so frequently, he responded with “that’s what everyone says you should do,” and I realized at that moment that this was probably one of the reasons he hadn’t been making much progress.

 

You Don’t HAVE to Change Things Every 4 Weeks

The rationale behind adjusting your program every 4 weeks stems from our understanding of the principle of adaption.

Your body is a survival machine that adapts to the stressors imposed on it, which means there’s only so long you can stick with a certain stressor – in this case, a specific training plan with specific exercises with a specific amount of volume and intensity – before your body adapts and you stop benefiting from your workouts like you did the time before.

This is certainly an important principle to keep in mind, and variation is extremely important to ensure continued and long-term success.

But, the kicker lies in the fact that everyone reacts to a training plan differently, and there is no one-specific time frame for which your body will adapt to a specific protocol.

 

YOU Aren’t Everyone Else

 

You know what my first training plan looked like?

Three full body workouts on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with the same exercises (back squat, deadlift, bench press, flat dumbbell press, barbell rows, dumbbell rows, bicep curls, dumbbell tricep extension, hanging leg raises), for the same number of sets and repetitions (3 sets of 10 reps).

On paper, this looks freakin stupid.

There’s no progression scheme, there’s no exercise variation, there’s no rest times, there’s no PLAN…there’s no way I could make progress on a program like this right?

Wrong.

I made fantastic progress, and in one year’s time (yeah that’s right, I used the exact same training plan – with no variation – for an entire year), I put 150 lbs. on my squat, 200 lbs. on my deadlift, and 100 lbs. on my bench press.

People kept telling me I needed to “switch things up in order to confuse my muscles,” or to “lift in different rep ranges to produce different results.”

But, whether it fit the text-book definition of a training plan or not, what I was doing was working.

Why on earth would I change it?

Now to be fair, I was – for a lack of a better word – a “newb.”

I was completely new to strength training, and as such anything I did at the time – even using a shake weight – would stimulate fairly decent results.

But, that doesn’t discredit the fact that I made great progress on a plan that any respectable strength coach would deem a piece of garbage, and it just goes to show the importance of using YOUR body to dictate when YOU need to change YOUR training plan.

Could I have made better progress on a plan that had more structure and was better put together?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

All I know is my first year of training was successful and a freakin blast.

And I can guarantee that I made more progress staying consistent with a crappy plan and listening to my body, than I would have listening to everyone else and chasing the “perfect” program that doesn’t exist.

 

Do You

The point I’m trying to make with all of this is simple:

If something is fun and enjoyable – and providing great results – DON’T CHANGE IT.

No matter what anyone tells you.

No matter how long you’re on it.

No matter what a text book says about periodization and programming.

And no matter how many new programs come out promising to be “THE program that’ll take your strength and physique to the next level.”

Everyone has an estimate for when your body will adapt to a specific protocol, but that’s all it really is: an estimate.

Your body will let you know when it’s had enough of what you’re currently doing.

Don’t change anything until it does.