Whether rehabilitating an injury or addiction, training for a job or vocation, restructuring a business or institution, or simply looking to shed a few kilos, we just love to segment the things we do in life into organised and structured programmes.

There are few endeavours in the realm of exercise and fitness more valuable than sitting down and establishing clear-cut, specific, measurable and realistic goals- Matthew Muscat Inglott

When we first walk into a health or sports club, a scripted exercise programme represents the first tune we ever dance to. Tackling this subject today has indeed been a long time coming, inspired by one of those perennial questions fitness professionals must face almost everyday: “How often should I change my exercise programme?” Some say four weeks, some say six, some say never, so what’s the story? Is there a generic and universally applicable rule here? Let’s see.

There are few endeavours in the realm of exercise and fitness more valuable than sitting down and establishing clear-cut, specific, measurable and realistic goals.

The programme you follow in the first place must depend entirely upon these carefully planned goals. The more specific your goal, the more specialised your programme will have to be, the less guesswork is involved, the narrower your options become, and the less frequently your routine will require a total overhaul.

Unless your goals suddenly change, with proper planning and preparation, the requirement of a complete overhaul should very rarely arise, if ever.

If, for example, you would like to compete in a powerlifting competition in three months’ time and ultimately lift 100kgs in the squat, 75kgs in the bench press and 120kgs in the deadlift, and you can only train three times a week for about half an hour, then we can agree your goals are pretty specific and your programming options are fairly limited.

You’re going to have to perform squats, bench presses and deadlifts in your programme, without a doubt. You will also need to perform them as often as your recovery allows, and the weights you lift are going to have to somehow increase incrementally from what you can lift now, to the target weights of 100, 75, and 120 kilos.

So in this case if you were to ask, “How often must I change my programme?” the answer is never. In the three-month period available, there really isn’t going to be much room for adjustment, apart from the actual weights you lift in each workout of course.

And what about if you want to run the half marathon in six months’ time, finish it in under two hours, and only train for it twice a week? It’s a pretty safe bet that whoever writes your programme, it will consist almost exclusively of running.

You might vary the speed, distance and type of surface you run on, but you are not going to feel very prepared come race day if you switch every month between running, cycling, rowing, stepping, or striding on a cross trainer. Your effective six-month programme will vary slightly, but not greatly.

Similarly in the rehabilitation context, if you are recovering from a total hip replacement operation, then your exercise programme is going to consist predominantly of specific exercises for strengthening the muscles of the core, hips and legs, and exercises to restore mobility around the hip joint.

You will be quite limited in your programming options here too. If, on the other hand, you have the relatively generic goal of feeling fitter and healthier, with no competitive or physically specific aspirations, your options are going to be much wider, allowing a lot more freedom in your programming choices.

Goals such as “losing some fat and toning up a little” can also be considered generic, and therefore can accommodate frequent changes in your routine, even as frequent as every single workout if you so wish, or have a personal trainer to suitably guide you.

Men wishing to “get bigger” are the most frequent victims of this programme-switching phenomenon.

The overabundant and often conflicting information so free-ly available on the subject has resulted in much confusion.

If your goal is to increase your overall muscle mass as quickly as possible, then despite the infinite number of bodybuilding exercises in existence that may confuse you into believing otherwise, there is still a specific and optimal programme which does not require frequent changes made to it.

Big gains in muscle mass require the use of big exercises like squats, shrugs, bench presses and weighted chin-ups or some other form of heavy pulls, incorporating enough repetitions per set to naturally stimulate growth hormone production. This principle will never change, and you would not need to cycle through an infinite number of different isolation exercises for each separate muscle group to achieve the same result.

If, on the other hand, your specific goal was to increase, say the size of your biceps without affecting any other muscles, then exercises that specifically isolate the biceps would indeed suddenly come into their own. Advanced bodybuilders frequently train in this specialised way to sculpt their bodies to the exacting requirements of their competitive sport.

In short, if your goals are specific and your programme properly incorporates the all-important principle of progression, there is no need to change something that works simply for the sake of changing it. Unless your goals have changed, switching to a programme that is possibly less effective will not get you any closer to your desired results.

The only exception to this rule is when not making the change means the difference between exercising and not exercising at all due to boredom. So get yourself on the right track from the outset, establish your goals and if you cannot find the best programme to meet your requirements, then try talking to a fitness professional who can.

info@noble-gym.com

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