Being a semi-educated meathead is fun! You get to help people get stronger because, after all, lifting heavy weights is fun, right?!
There are limitations to certain principles in the weight room, and it is our job as coaches to explain these things to our clients so they have a better understanding of the path that they have ahead.
One of those common myths is that you should be adding weight to the bar every week that you’re in the gym.
This is true to a certain extent. I think it’s far more accurate to say you should get stronger every week.
Progressive overload is the process of gradually increasing the demands of your muscles on a week-to-week basis to increase overall strength.
However, due to the adaptive properties of the human body, the above principle only takes you so far. Because everyone, at some point within their training program, does reach a plateau where they are unable to keep progressively overloading the same exercise.
If there were no limitations to this principle, then everyone would have a world record deadlift at some point in their lifting career.
When people are brand new to the gym, it’s super easy to get people stronger. Add 5-10 pounds per week, keep the lift the same, and watch the numbers grow.
When that runs its course, we’ve got to switch some things up.
Principle of Variation
When Progressive Overload has ran its course, it’s time to do something that we love to program at the gym. In general, depending on how often you train, changing your training program every four to six weeks will usually solve your strength issue.
This involves changing the exercise in the program and/or modifying the order of exercises. This gives the body enough time to adapt, but usually isn’t a long enough training period for the program to become boring or no longer beneficial.
What we like to do at JDFit is keep a lot of our main exercises the same. Think a trap bar deadlift or a belt squat. Mess with the reps and sets of those, and then periodically change the accessory exercises that come with those days.
You have to be able to balance the mundane with a little bit of the variation as well.
Lesson Learned
Focus on using the same basic movement patterns, i.e., pushing, pulling, lower body work, etc., but in slightly different ways through the use of different exercise variations.
Switching every single day of every week diminishes the effectiveness of these basic exercises, because said effectiveness is predicated upon the ability of the athlete to perform the exercise well. So we need to have them performing exercises often enough to reap the benefits.
Are you stuck in a plateau? Schedule your consultation here! —-> https://getjdfit.com/free-intro-social/
