In training, it can be hard to commit to one training programme for a long time. No matter what your training goal, it can be difficult to pick from the myriad of different training options out there. Once you do pick a training regime, it’s easy to find a cool new workout online or get restless whilst waiting for results.
This blog is your sign to stick with your current training programme a while longer. Most people I speak to either don’t follow a programme at all, or they change every 6-8 weeks. I have spent most of my career (and my own training) rotating through 6-8 week-programmes.
While this training duration definitely can get you results, my latest 12-week block of strength training has been paying dividends despite my relatively high training experience. There are a few reasons for this which can pay great dividends in your own training.
Caveat: Consistency in training is a hugely popular talking point at the moment, but it would be naïve of me to suggest that everyone can do the exact same programme every week without fail. It’s not always realistic to expect to follow a perfectly-structured 12-week strength programme if you’re raising kids, living with a health condition, working a chaotic job, or facing some other kind of regular disruption. If this is you, look out for my upcoming blog on flexible training. However, for those people that frequently change programmes due to magpie syndrome or because they believe in “shocking the body,” these points are for you.
A Longer Training Programme Can Improve Exercise Mastery
Each exercise is a skill. Exercises depend on co-ordinated muscular recruitment patterns to ensure the right muscles contract and relax when needed. This is true whether you’re trying to increase your deadlift, grow your glutes, or become a better runner. There are myriad processes that dictate how your body operates, and almost all of them improve with practice. These improvements will help you perform better AND get more stimulus from your workouts.
We see this phenomenon in the rapid improvements most people undergo within the first 2-6 weeks of training. Increased strength, decreased soreness, and sustained performance are all things we see in those early days. But these “newbie gains” should be considered the beginning of the journey, not the end. Persist with your programme even when these gains taper off. You may get slower results compared to your first weeks of training, but you may still see an impressive rate of progress.
Running a training programme for 10, 12 or even 15 weeks is a fantastic way to get every drop of adaptation from that particular stimulus by ensuring you’re training as well as you can. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t vary sets, reps, weight, or tempo in that time (more on that below). You can also deload to ensure you stay fresh. Just don’t throw everything out after 6 weeks.
Sticking To Your Training Programme Can Increase Your Longevity
There are only so many training methods that actually work. If you try to produce a different workout every week, eventually you are going to run out of useful exercises and approaches to include. Sooner or later you will exhaust your list of things that actually work and resort to more and more gimmicks to give the illusion of freshness. You see this a lot in trainers/gyms that boast about never doing the same workout twice.
You can get a lot of mileage out of the same exercises by making subtle changes elsewhere in the programme. As Pocahontas said:
“What I love most about rivers is
You can’t step in the same river twice
The water’s always changing, always flowing.”
Yes, this is mostly just an excuse to use Disney lyrics in a blog, but there is a point.
Each time you do a workout should be like stepping in the same river, but with small ripples and variations. Do 8 reps at 55kg instead of 10 reps at 52.5kg. Do 4 sets instead of 3. Add a pause at the bottom of an exercise with lighter weight. These variations can give you a different workout every week, without having to revolutionise your training every day.
As I’ve already mentioned, because you’re not overhauling the programme every time, you’ll also be less sore/tired after each workout. This can decrease the time between workouts, allowing you to keep up that momentum and continue making progress.
Summary
Longer training blocks will help you maintain your progress without the demands of reinventing and adapting to a new programme as frequently. If your lifestyle allows, you owe it to yourself to see how far you can go over 10+ weeks of following one programme. Be patient, and focus on the small changes that keep you moving forward.
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