Find out why you need to make drastic changes in your training process from time to time in order to increase your progress. Many beginners are wondering how often to change bodybuilding and fitness workouts. The question is very interesting and correct, so it was decided to answer it in as much detail as possible. There is a lot of information on this topic on the net and it is very contradictory. You may be advised to change the training program once or twice a month, while others recommend making changes every six months.
It is clear that after reading all this information, beginners still cannot figure out how often to change workouts in bodybuilding and fitness. Today we will talk about this topic from the point of view of science. It is thanks to the latest scientific facts that you can competently organize your training process.
Why change your bodybuilding and fitness workouts?
It should be recognized that it is necessary to change your training program. Thanks to this, you will be able to get the following results:
- Acceleration of progress in working weights.
- Fast set of muscle mass.
- Accelerate the growth of physical parameters.
- Get rid of excess weight faster.
Muscles are not ordinary threads, but fast-adapting and learning fibers that can contract. In order for the body to activate the processes of muscle growth, it is necessary to put them in uncomfortable conditions that they have never encountered before. It is the muscle fiber overload factor that is the main principle of strength training. Only in this situation can you gain weight.
As soon as you increase the working weight, or introduce a new movement into the training program, the muscles are subjected to severe stress. As a result, the athlete is actively gaining mass, and his physical parameters grow. The duration of this period of time is maximum one month. As soon as the body adapts to previous changes. The builder's progress begins to slow down and as a result, a plateau state may come.
It must be said here that the changes made to the training program should not be limited only to an increase in working weight. Joe Weider introduced various principles of increasing intensity into bodybuilding, for example, supersets. In addition, it is worth changing parameters such as the number of sets and repetitions in them.
How quickly do muscles adapt to stress?
Our body has a very high-quality mechanism of adaptation to changes in external conditions. For example, for the brain, any movement that you repeat for twenty days will become a habit. Within a couple of workouts, the muscles begin to adapt to the load. An example is a situation that is familiar to every athlete.
When you start doing a movement with a new weight or just starting to play sports, then the next morning it will be difficult to move your arms and legs. However, after two or three sessions, such problems do not arise. Thus, the most stressful period for muscles is the first two to four weeks.
It is during this time period that the most significant changes in muscle tissues occur. The next three weeks can be called a phase of slow decay, and already starting from the ninth week, the muscles do not respond to training. However, it should be understood that the above range is plastic. Simply put, all these numbers are not an axiom and depend on the level of training of the builder.
It is quite obvious that if your training experience does not exceed 12 months, then the muscles will take longer to adapt. This is due to the fact that the neuro-muscular connections in novice athletes have not yet been developed, and it is this fact that allows them to progress quickly enough at first. We recommend in this situation to make changes to the training program 5-10 weeks later.
Experienced athletes who use various methods of increasing the intensity of training should do exactly the opposite. If we talk about specific figures, then changes can be made once a month or one and a half. Let's summarize all of the above and note how often bodybuilding and fitness workouts are changed depending on the level of fitness:
- Novice builders - Once every 2.5–4.5 months.
- Intermediate athletes - every two or three months.
- Experienced bodybuilders - once every 4–6 weeks.
Many athletes who want to know how often to change their bodybuilding and fitness workouts only mean the strength part of their training. At the same time, they do not make changes in cardio loads, which is wrong. The fact is that all systems of our body can adapt to changes in external conditions. Moreover, the heart and vascular system do it even faster in comparison with the muscles. As a result, energy is consumed more economically.
If you want to lose weight, then you need to make changes not only in the strength part of the training, but also in cardio. On average, the body needs a month or a maximum of two to adapt to cardio stress. As a result, less energy is burned, which slows down the process of losing weight. We recommend changing the pattern of aerobic exercise as follows:
- 1st to 3rd week - swimming lessons.
- 4th to 7th week - work with a rope.
- 8 to 11 weeks - sprint races.
Today we are talking about how often to change bodybuilding and fitness workouts from a scientific point of view. In the course of research, it was found that the muscles fully adapt to a certain training volume and intensity of training already during the fourth training session.
All of the following activities play the role of supportive and do not lead to muscle growth and physical parameters. Simply put, already on the fifth workout, the body is in a plateau state. The more time one and the same training program is used, the less effective it becomes.
Why are frequent workout changes unsuccessful?
You have probably come across information on the Internet that you need to change your workouts as often as possible. In theory, this way you can constantly stress your muscles. However, in practice this does not happen, since from a physiological point of view, muscles, due to their passivity, cannot be shocked.
Not all athletes are aware that any strength movement has a so-called learning or neural adaptation curve, according to Western literature. To put it simply, our body adapts to each movement for a certain time, and there are no universal indicators. Depending on the training experience of the builder and the complexity of the movement itself, the adaptation period of the body to it can range from a couple of weeks to several months.
For example, your muscles adapt to the deadlift much later than the biceps curls. Let's turn to the theory of neural adaptation, which assumes a minimal increase in muscle in the first stage of training. Only after overcoming the "nervous plateau" tissue hypertrophy accelerates sharply. It should be remembered that a plateau cannot be understood as stagnation.
Scientists in the course of research have found that peak speed and strength increase only when the body's ability to use the maximum number of fibers in work increases. Strength training helps to adapt not only the muscles, but also the nervous system. This enables athletes to actively use those primary driving forces in a particular movement and to coordinate as well as possible the process of including in the work of all the muscles necessary to perform the movement.
From all of the above, we can draw the following conclusion - if you make changes to the training program every month or one and a half, then the rate of progress will be quite low. This time period is not enough to establish high-quality neuro-muscular connections, but the athlete is already starting to perform a new exercise. To improve neuro-muscular connections, two or three basic movements must be performed for each muscle group. Neural connections are not so actively pumped when performing isolated movements.
Should I change my working weight or my training program?
Our muscles cannot think for themselves and are therefore passive. They can only carry out the commands that the nervous system sends them. This suggests that you will not be able to deceive the muscles, because they are just doing a certain job. They don't care what training program you are using. For growth, muscles only need a constant progression of load.
If you can provide this condition without increasing the working weight or with minimal changes, then there is nothing to talk about. In other words, the principle of load progression allows athletes to use the training program for a longer time without changing it.
Often, athletes change their training programs according to a specific scenario. Let's say they learned that changes need to be made every month and a half, and they do just that. However, if you properly progress the load, then you will be able to use your program for much longer. Advanced builders often change their programs in order to overcome the plateau.
Today, most often in bodybuilding, a split system is used, when an athlete divides the body into several muscle groups and then pumps them once or twice a week. This allows you to progress to the point where working weights increase. You must remember that the key to your success is planning and consistency.
In addition, we must not forget that increases the working weight, you need to monitor the calorie intake and you may need to increase this indicator. Thus, we can recommend that you first use the full potential of the training program by increasing its tension and only then make changes to it.
When is it necessary to change the training program in bodybuilding and fitness?
We've already talked about how often to change bodybuilding and fitness workouts, but there are three reasons why you need to do this without fail.
- Changing the purpose of the training. It is quite obvious that if you gained weight, and now you need to dry out, then the training program should be changed.
- Various life situations. Almost every person has a spot practice integrated into their daily life. Only the professionals do it the other way around. Gradually, we have new concerns and responsibilities that cannot but affect the training program. If you have less time for training than before, then you will have to change the program, adapting it to the new conditions of life.
- Training has become a burden. If you do not change your workouts for a long time, then they turn into a routine and can no longer bring satisfaction. If you do not make changes at this moment, then you will not be able to train further.
For more details on changing the training program, see the video below:
