The more you do something the easier it becomes, and that’s certainly the case with weight training. Every time you repeat an activity your body is improving its ability to handle that stress.
This means you burn fewer calories and build less muscle with every workout. Making progress requires the introduction of new activity – your weights programme needs regular changes. There are five factors that influence how often you should make a change to get the best results for you.
The first factor is how often you do your programme. If you do it three times per week you’ll need to update it more often than if you’re doing it once a week alongside two classes. It’s the number of times you do the programme, not the number of weeks you do it for.
Factor two is your level of fitness. If you’re new to exercise it will take your body more time to adapt. Your muscles will need longer to get accustomed to the load, and your brain will need longer to learn the new movement patterns. A beginner might need eight to ten sessions on a new programme, whereas an experienced exerciser might be ready for a change after four to six sessions. The fitter you are the more you need to challenge yourself to make continued progress.
Factor three is your general health. If you’re feeling strong and healthy then your body will readily adapt to new loads. But if your body is under strain, for example if you’re under a lot of stress and not eating or sleeping well, then it’s different. Too much exercise at too high an intensity can exhaust you and imbalance your hormones, causing you to lose condition rather than gain it. If all is not well, you may get better results from keeping a familiar, moderate intensity programme. Sometimes the success is just getting off the couch and away from the fridge to do something rather than nothing.
Factor four is the extent of the change. The four factors you can manipulate to change up a programme are frequency of exercise, intensity of exercise, time spent exercising and type of exercise. It’s ideal to manipulate one variable at a time, for example putting up your programme weights or trying a new class. If you’re doing thrice-weekly gym floor weights, then you’ll be in for a shock if you suddenly double your gym visits and start tag-teaming grit and sprint classes.
Factor five is your exercise temperament. Everyone is different. If you are a creature of habit there’s no point in pressuring yourself to adapt to constant changes. You’ll just get frustrated that you never seem to master the exercises. Equally, if you’re somebody who enjoys variety you will get bored quickly if you don’t change it up a lot. Either way you’ll lose your motivation to adhere to your plan.
The best exercise is the one you enjoy enough to actually get in the gym door to do.
