Variety: How Often Should You Switch Up Your Workouts | The FIT Facility
Variety, How Often Should You Switch Up Your Workouts?
So how often should you be mixing it up? How about asking yourself these questions instead…
What are your training goals; is it just to get sweaty and check a box? Do you simply workout for the “healthy of it”, or do you actually care about long term improvement? How good are you at the exercises you’re currently using? Do you even need variation?
Now, there are no wrong answers here. If your goal is to just check the box and get sweaty, that’s ok. Consistent results aren't for everybody. If you’d like to do push-ups from your knees forever, we get it. Just kidding. Well, not really.
You see, you can get in shape, to a degree by just doing random exercises and moving. We all know this. Literally doing anything will get you in better shape than watching some crappy 90s sitcom you’ve already seen 6 times.
This is the reason why bad training programs will pop up in your local town and people will see initial results. Does that type of program, or lack thereof leave you open for the possibility of an increased risk of injury? Sure. How about hitting a plateau sooner? Of course. But is that better than sinking deeper into the couch, not doing anything? Duh.
So let’s revisit the previous question now with a new lens. If you are looking for consistent progress and improvement in your physical fitness, you’ll need a solid training program. A solid program will consist of some sort of mobility/activation drills as well as some type of movement prep, usually in the form of a dynamic warm-up or complex of sorts. Following that, a balanced program that covers all major movement patterns is ideal. The icing on the cake would finish with some type of restorative work/breathing drills.
But how often should I vary my exercises?
Again, for the people in the back, you can participate in a really bad training program and still become fit, to a degree. Your progress will stall, and you’ll eventually have to adhere to actual principles of strength and conditioning. Even worse, you’ll have been working out for 1 maybe even 2 years and still have a relatively poor foundation; a low training age.
Wait, what? “But I've been training for years! How can I have such a low training age”? It’s simple. There was never a foundation built. You’ve been doing push-ups from your knees for two years, does it sound like a foundation was built? No, of course not.
What, how? A lack of principles largely plays a role here. A lack of progressive overload paired with poor exercise selection sets the stage for one to have a low training age despite having trained for years. Constantly choosing exercises with very low risk that require very low technical skill (a sled drive for example) are all a means to an end. At some point in time, you’ll have to learn more complex, technical lifts if you wish to progress.
*Side note*
Just like you grew out of your Pampers, you’ll grow out of your exercise selection. But funny enough, the older you become, you may go back to the original exercise selection, and Pampers. As you age, life obviously happens, you don’t have the mobility/flexibility you once had. It now takes longer to recover. You banged up your knee skiing that one year. You get the idea. So, you’ll actually end up back to the same exercise selection you once started with. Lifts that are more joint friendly and less technical. All in an effort to maintain the strength, power and muscle mass you should have been building through adulthood. Mike Boyle has an excellent concept on this topic called “Gamer man”.
Adhering to Principles
We see programs tout constantly varied or even having variety as its main selling point. The classic, “you’ll never do the same workout twice” is a simple example. We’ve all seen this. However, what some programs are claiming as their greatest asset, we consider to be their biggest weakness.
All training programs should abide by a set of principles. Trainers,coaches, even athletes are all too eager to think outside of the box, without first knowing what is in the box. They fail to adhere to even the most basic principles of strength and conditioning.
Just like there are universal laws of nature, strength and conditioning too has a set of rules that must be followed, and when we’re talking scientific practice and practical application of proper strength training, principles are everything.
Progressive Overload
Strength and Conditioning 101, progressive overload. If you’re not familiar with the principle of progressive overload. Take the time to read the article.
All too often even seasoned strength and conditioning professionals fall in the trap of believing that the only way to overload an exercise is to increase the load (weight). We must remember that strength is the servant, not the master. There are many ways to overload a movement that will drive positive athletic adaptations. Some of the variables are as followed:
Base of support
Intensity of effort
Volume
Point of contact
Density
External stability
Movement skill demands
Range of motion (ROM)
Planes of motion
Exercise Selection and Variety
So, since we’re on the topic of principles, we can’t skip over appropriate exercise selection. With the topic of exercise selection in mind, it’s important to remember the SAID principle. Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands, “The SAID principle says every sport poses its own unique demands and that in order to improve skills unique to a particular sport, it’s best to practice the moves used in that sport. SAID is the acronym for Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands”.
With this in mind, it’s important to choose exercise that will help you reach your goal. Some exercises will be more beneficial than others. Take the time to learn and build a foundation. Learning to squat and hinge correctly will be more beneficial for the overwhelming majority of the population than sitting on a leg extension machine or doing donkey kick backs on a cable machine.
With that being said, even the simplest exercises aren’t quickly mastered just after one session. In fact, it may take months/years to become proficient in some exercises. Once one is proficient, are they strong? This again, may take months/years. So, you can quickly see how in theory, constantly changing exercises would be a great idea. However, it’s practical application for long term success is quite limited. Here’s yet another highly likely scenario/consideration.
Take a novice trainee, if for example you do some sort of bilateral squatting (BB Front, BB Back, BB Zercher, HB Deadlift, KB Goblet, etc.) on Monday, over the course of a year, realistically this athlete only did 52 bilateral squatting workouts. That’s assuming life didn’t happen and there were 0 missed training sessions. Ask yourself again, is that enough “practice” to get proficient?
If it is, are they strong? If the answer is no, then why bother with variety?
If one is weak in a certain movement pattern, and if that movement pattern happens to be a primary movement pattern, why on earth would you use variety to switch the exercise? Again, revisit your goals. Was your goal to get sweaty and check the box of fitness? If so, again, that’s ok. Long term improvement isn’t for everyone. If you actually want to build a solid foundation which will then set the stage for future growth and long term success, then continue with the same exercise selection until you master it.
If you’re just completely uninspired and insist on variety then chew on this.
Giving credit where credit is due; again, I heard Mike Boyle touch on this topic during a Power Athlete podcast, link will be here. His concept of variety without change hits the nail on the head. I highly recommend a listen.
Variety, without change. An oxymoron?
Maybe. Let’s dive deeper.
So you want long term development and progress but you get bored easily and obviously don’t want to do the same workout day in and day out. Luckily, you also recognized the importance of adhering to a balanced program. So, what can you do? Well, variety without change is a good place to start. What’s that mean?
Let’s take a split squat for example. With our feet in that split stance, there are many different pieces of equipment we can use to do the split squat. For example, we can use a barbell (front/back), a kettlebell (suitcase/offset, front rack/offset), etc. So, the concept of variety without change is essentially, how many ways can we do the same thing, differently. This is how we can still drive the stimulus and adaptation with the illusion of variety.
We’re still checking the box of our split stance, the only change is the equipment we’re using. This is a great strategy for those that are new, or those that are highly advanced. We can all agree that anything will work for untrained athletes. This universal law of strength and conditioning is largely why really bad programs have the illusion of success. Their athletes progress to an extent, then hit a plateau harder than Miles Garrett can swing a Steelers helmet.
Conversely, if an athlete is so highly trained and already incredibly strong, further pushing strength is a means to an end. Variety and training an individual athlete's power profile can further drive improvement.
Recap
So yes, for the sake of intra-trainment, who doesn’t love some variety? We get it. No one wants to just do that same ole cookie cutter exercises until the end of time. However building a rock solid foundation and Hulk-like strength with a handful of exercises will help you cultivate and maintain long term development. And if you’re already strong as hell, variety without change is a great concept for you to add to your already balanced training program.
Sources
NSCA -National Strength & Conditioning Association. (2021). Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning (Fourth ed.). Human Kinetics.
Joyce, D., & Lewindon, D. (2021). High-Performance Training for Sports (Second ed.). Human Kinetics.
Welbourn, J. (2020). INFLUENCER MIKE BOYLE ACTUALLY COACHES. Power Athlete Podcast. episode. Retrieved 2021, from https://powerathletehq.com/ep-351-influencer-mike-boyle-actually-coaches/.