You might have heard this from many gym-goers & also from a few trainers that you have to change exercise regularly to see progress. Else your muscles will adapt & you won’t see any growth in it. They say that you have to confuse, shock & trick your muscles by changing your workout regularly.
But this is untrue. Your skeletal muscles will only grow if they get stressed constantly through the progressive overloading technique.
If we change our training plan regularly, it is more counterproductive than anything beneficial. Bcoz there is nothing concrete to measure your progress. E.g if in 1st week of chest day you are doing a flat dumbbell press, low cable flyes & incline barbell press In Next week of chest day if you are doing incline cable crossover, decline chest flyes & peck deck then there is nothing to measure the progress from workout to workout. This mostly happens with beginners as they are new to the gym & they want to try every machine available in the gym. But unfortunately, this doesn’t help at all.
Especially for beginners, the workout should not be changed frequently bcoz as we do the same exercises regularly our CNS (central nervous system) learns those movements. Though movements are simple it needs to be practiced regularly for CNS learning.
Now you might be thinking that how CNS learning will be helpful ?
While lifting heavy we need to have connection between muscles & mind. If the focus is lost then you might get an injury. But it wont happen if the CNS have learnt that movement properly.
E.g of CNS learning is while we are eating food with a spoon. If the light goes off then the spoon will automatically go to your mouth & not in eyes or nose.
-If you have any injury in your shoulders, back, or knees. Then proper rest should be given to that part along with strengthening. Like if you have pain in knees then you can do box squats rather than doing full squats. In such cases workout plan should be changed else it might aggravate the pain.
-If your Fitness goals are changed then also you need to change your workout plan. Suppose you are earlier competing for men’s physique where you need a v shape back with decent arms & now you are competing for men’s classic physique where you need pretty much muscular shape then your workout should be changed accordingly. The workout should be also specific if you are practicing any sports like weightlifting.
-If your fitness level has changed then also you can change your workout plan. For example if you have just started going to gym then you will be considered a beginner. At that time it is always advised to do a machine-based workout. As there is a very less chance of getting into the wrong posture in a machine-based workout. As the form & posture gets better after a few months you can switch to free weights i.e barbell & dumbbell. In free weights the stabilizer muscles also get involves which is compromised in machine-based workouts.
-Last reason for changing your workout plan is if you don’t feel that motivated to do your workout. This mostly happens with beginners. In a 2019 study, it is seen that [1] there is a positive change in the motivation of people when the workout is changed on regular basis. It is also seen in the study that frequent changes in exercise will compromise the growth of muscles & strength.
Final Takeaway:
If you are following a balanced workout, which means all muscles are targeted properly. It shouldn’t be like that in one muscle you are doing 20 sets while in the other you are doing just 5 sets. If you are able to see improvement in your lifting weights every week then your progress is going good & you don’t need to shock your muscles in any way. But then also you want to change something in your workout for the growth of your muscles then increase your lifting weight, increase the number of sets keeping the reps range 8-10 & decrease the rest period between sets. Don’t change your compound lifts like squats, deadlifts & bench-press. Rather than you can do variations in isolateral or machine workouts like triceps push down.
References:
Video links:
Commentaires