Should Your Training Program Change Every Week? Not If You Want Results

There is no shortage of new exercises online. Scroll through Instagram for five minutes and you will probably find a new squat variation, an unusual piece of equipment or an exercise you have never seen before.

Variety can make training interesting. But constantly changing what you do is not necessarily the best way to make progress.

Progress needs consistency

One of the most important principles in strength and conditioning is progressive overload. Your body needs a reason to adapt, whether that means gradually increasing the load, completing more quality repetitions, improving your range of motion or performing an exercise with better control and technique.

To measure that progress, you need some consistency. If you squat one week, replace it with something completely different the next, and then move onto another variation the week after, it becomes difficult to know whether you are actually getting stronger.

Exercises are a skill too

There is also a skill component to strength training. Exercises such as squats, deadlifts, presses and rows improve with practice. Repeating them gives you an opportunity to develop better technique, become more confident and gradually handle more challenging loads.

So should your program ever change? Absolutely

The key is changing it with a purpose.

At RevoPT, we structure training into blocks. Important movements remain in the program long enough for you to learn them, practise them and make measurable progress.

As the training block develops, we can then manipulate variables such as load, repetitions, sets, tempo, exercise variations and conditioning demands.

When it is time for a new block, exercises or training priorities may change again based on what we are trying to achieve next.

This provides enough consistency to make progress without simply repeating the same program indefinitely.

Good programming is a skill, not a highlight reel

Good programming is not about finding new exercises every week. It is about knowing what to keep, what to progress and when to change it.

That is how training becomes more than just a collection of workouts. It becomes a program.

Keep reading

• The Science of Progressive Overload
• Consistency Beats Perfection: Your Simple Weekly Fitness Scorecard
• Are You Actually Training Hard Enough? A Simple Guide to Reps in Reserve

Ready to follow a program built with a purpose, not just variety for its own sake? Start with our Jump Start program or get in touch with our South Melbourne team.