Who else has been told that you need to “shock” your muscles to make maximum progress? Don’t worry, once upon a time we were confused about this topic too!
It’s not uncommon to hear that every few weeks you should “switch-up” your program in order to “shock and confuse” your muscles so they can grow more.
While our muscles may have cells (which can hypertrophy to be huge!), they are vastly different to brain cells, and fortunately don’t get confused
If anything, keeping an exercise in your program for longer and maximising execution, intensity and strength is the way to go! Also, it might take you weeks or even months (think squats and deadlifts) to nail the movement pattern and start making decent strength progressions.
Typically we’ll keep an exercise in our program until:
▪️Our progression stalls for a significant period of time
▪️The exercise is increasing our risk of injury
▪️We are genuinely bored of that exercise and want to try something new
▪️We think another exercise could be more appropriate for our goals and circumstances
▪️We’ve changed gym environments and we need to modify the exercise based on available equipment
If your progress is stalling in the gym, chances are you need to invest more time into the proficiency of your lifts, combined with adequate nutrition and recovery modalities. Constantly switching your exercise selection and training regime will ensure that you never truly master a specific approach!
Let us know, how often do you change your training program?