Sometimes we get so caught up with trying to build muscle using the basic mass building exercises that have been proven to work by countless top bodybuilders and weight lifters that we forget to change our training routines so the muscles don’t get stuck on a plateau. It’s probably one of the most common mistakes weight trainers and bodybuilders make as it’s so easy to do. I have often walked into the gym on autopilot concentrating more on trying to lift as much weight as I can using correct form and resting only for short periods between sets to keep the intensity high and totally forgetting that I have done the exact same workout for that particular bodypart for weeks without changing my routine. The truth of the matter is it’s such an easy problem to fix and the best way to fix it is to get in the habit of briefly planning your workout on the way to the gym or just before you start your workout, it should only take a minute.
It’s not just about changing your exercises but also about changing the order of your exercises. Let’s say you are training chest today and you plan to do 4 different exercises all for 3 sets each. You start with flat bench press, followed by incline dumbbell press, followed by decline dumbbell flyes and then finishing with cable crossovers. This routine is a hardcore, yet basic and an effective mass building chest workout that will definitely stimulate growth in all areas of the chest, lower, inner and upper parts of the pecs. However if you performed this same workout in the same order of exercises for over 4 weeks straight all you would effectively be doing is maintaining the pec muscle you currently have, you wouldn’t be growing any extra muscle. If however you changed the order and style of the exercises using the same basic movements or simply adding in one or two different exercises into your chest training cycle you would be stimulating growth every week by shocking the muscles from all sorts of different angles. For example, on the second week you could start with the cable crossovers and you’d be able to use more weight since you are performing this exercise first in your chest routine instead of last, followed by decline smith machine bench press, followed by incline dumbbell flyes and finishing with chest machine presses. So your second week workout is quite similar to your first week but you changed the order of exercises and swapped decline dumbbell flyes with decline smith machine bench press, swapped incline dumbbell presses for incline flyes and only completely changed one exercise from flat barbell presses the first week to chest machine presses the second week.The most important thing is to still stick with the basic mass building exercises but mix the styles around by changing flat benches with incline benches, swapping some pressing movements with flyes, swap barbells with dumbbells and just completely change one or two exercises with something entirely different. When training for big arms this is very easy to do since there are so many different exercises to choose from and numerous variations of the same basic exercises. Just a couple of simple examples would be to swap seated alternate dumbbell curls with standing dumbbell hammer curls. Swap standing barbell curls with seated preacher curls, dumbbell preacher curls with standing cable curls, you could also swap machine bicep curls with standing barbell negative curls where you curl the weight to the top of the exercise then lower the bar for the negative part of the movement at a super slow speed, the list of alternatives for biceps is endless.
If you change your training routines just slightly week after week, it keeps your workouts from becoming monotonous, helps you maintain a higher level of motivation and means there is certainly less chance of your training progress stagnating. The last thing you want after making all the effort to eat right, get enough rest and train your guts out in the gym is to see no results. So everytime you are on your way to the gym or just before you start your workout, just go over in your mind or write down in a journal what you did in your last workout for the bodypart you are working on that day and make sure you mix it up a bit from the previous week and you won’t be disappointed with the steady gains you continue to make. The last thing you want is to do all that work and stay the same or even worse, get smaller.
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