Training Misconceptions (Part 2)
”Varying my strength workouts frequently will lead to better results”
A lot of people value variety in their workouts. There are a number of reasons people switch their workouts up, one increasingly popular belief is that one of the best ways to see fast progress is to “confuse” muscle fibers by constantly introducing new exercises. The premise is that muscles adapt quickly to exercises and that they’ll become less effective if repeated too frequently. If you don’t constantly challenge your muscles to adapt to new exercises, you won’t get the results you’re looking for.
This concept is a total myth, muscles are not confused into developing definition and strength. Unfortunately, it’s getting more widely spread as fitness classes, apps, and social media fitness accounts use the idea of never repeating the same workout to add value to the product they’re selling. New workouts are exciting, and telling people they need them constantly is a much better way to keep subscribers than to emphasize proper form (something that’s hard to really monitor in a large class or an app based workout) and consistent hard work.
When variety adds real value
This isn’t to say you should never mix it up. Variety can add value to workout programs in a number of ways. It can help keep you excited about your workouts - it’s important to enjoy your workouts, no matter how effective the program, if you’re dreading every workout you should switch it up. There are also cognitive benefits related to learning new movement patterns. Strengthening the neuromuscular connection is associated with improved coordination, reflexes, and more. Third, you’ll find the exercises that work best for you by experimenting with new moves. That said, if you keep seeking out new moves and workouts just because they’re new, you’ll end up wasting gym time learning new moves you saw on the internet (they haven’t existed till recently for a reason).
Side note: If you don’t include any of the same exercises on a regular basis, your program will lack some really meaningful measures of progress. By incorporating the same lift or exercise week after week, you can see how your strength and endurance progress. I encourage everyone to set at least one performance based goal rather than measure success by weight loss or muscle gain alone.
So, if variety isn’t the key to a successful training regimen, what is?
You can achieve real progress through performing effective exercises with proper form, fatigue, and progressive overload. See the first post in this series for more on that! Be sure to include a proper warm-up, and exercises in your program that work the full kinetic chain in the body of your workout (complex lifts like squats that work an entire chain of muscles as they are supposed to function together). When it comes to fat loss, these complex movements are most effective for building strength. Muscular strength is what keeps metabolism high even during rest, and a high metabolism is what leads to overall fat loss.
Keep moving and training consistently, and be sure you’ve got an appropriate amount of vegetables (micronutrients/vitamins), protein and carbs in your diet to support your lifestyle. I’ll focus more on the nutrition side of things in my next post here!
Consistency is key, but when is a good time to shift a program?
While the same training style can remain effective for a long time, if you don’t see any changes for a few weeks in a row, maybe it’s time to reconsider your program. This might be a small shift, like changing a couple exercises or the amount of cardio you’re doing. If you’ve been in the same program for a long time on a very consistent basis, it might mean training in a different style for a period of time. Changing your workout intensity and style periodically in a structured way is called a periodized training program. If you aren’t familiar with this idea of a periodized workout program or don’t know how to structure one, find a trainer to help you work one out.
Conclusion
Find a challenging training style that you enjoy and stick to it for a while to see results. Experiment with different moves, but make sure there’s a reason you’re adding them other than just to switch it up. A good test is to ask yourself “why?” during a given move. If you can’t answer that, then it might not be important to include or you might need to learn more about it from a professional. Stick to classic moves and variations that have solid reasoning behind them. Keep workouts challenging and engaging with things like varied foot and arm placement, new set patterns, stricter rest breaks, balance challenges (use unstable things like the bosu or exercise ball, for example), and multiplanar movements.
Resources
https://www.acefitness.org/education-and-resources/lifestyle/blog/5867/how-many-reps-should-you-be-doing
https://www.acefitness.org/education-and-resources/lifestyle/blog/3629/myths-and-misconceptions-spot-reduction-and-feeling-the-burn
https://www.acefitness.org/education-and-resources/professional/expert-articles/3722/how-not-to-impress-your-clients-top-5-things-trainers-do-that-backfire
https://www.thecut.com/2016/08/workout-plans-based-on-muscle-confusion-dont-work.html