Change the Key to Sucess in your Fitness Program

No matter how great a new weight training program is working to build muscle, as most of us painfully know first hand, progress eventually begins to slow down until we are just breaking even. Frustration then sets in; this wonderful weight training, diet, and exercise program that was so great before now seems to be completely worthless. Most of us would rationalize that we simply need to train harder and longer; possibly somewhere along the line we became lazy and just need to step it up. Weight training volume and intensity is then increased, and your weight training workouts which were once completed in a very efficient 45-60 minutes are now taking hours. We are further disappointed to realize that in spite of all this extra effort, we are getting weaker instead of stronger- actually going backwards!

This situation is all too familiar with those who frequent gyms and is the number one cause of people dropping out of their exercise programs for general weight loss and health or bodybuilding. Although persistence is a necessity, the number one factor which determines success or failure with your fitness goals is the ability to overcome adversity- simply trudging along doing the same thing over and over again in the gym will get you the same results as before....none. As I tell my personal training clients, "you can only bang your head into a brick wall so many times before you have to get smart and walk around it." Your weight training program is not working, so you must change things, even if this involves a more "lateral" move rather one that take you immediately forward. The path to success in fitness is never a linear one, and in order to reach our goals we must make the necessary adjustments with the longer term in mind. We have all experienced this situation and those of us still in the game have found a way to walk around the impassible "roadblocks" to reaching our ultimate fitness goals. While I will not go into the specifics of weight training program design here, it is very important to conceptually realize the most important variable that will ensure continual success in all your fitness or bodybuilding efforts: change.

Our bodies are not static; we are constantly making billions or biochemical adjustments over the course of a day just to keep us alive. Because of our inherent ability to adapt to anything, a weight loss or muscle building program must be dynamic. Maybe your goals are for weight loss and you are doing a certain type of cardio for fat loss or you are a bodybuilder and have not changed your weight training program in years. In either case, the body has adapted to the exercise; fat loss and muscle gains have become slower over time eventually coming to a complete halt. While the technical nuts and bolts of designing a weight training program or weight loss program can be complicated- the conceptual aspect to their successful design is quite simple; change what you are doing.

If you have been using the treadmill as cardio for weight loss and fat-burning, switch to the elliptical trainer. If you have been doing longer duration cardio switch to high intensity cardio such as interval training. The same goes for weight training; if your bench press has stalled switch to dumbbell bench pressing-or cut out the bench press all together- do parallel dips and incline dumbbell presses for chest training. The same goes for how you have been executing these exercises; if you have been training with a higher volume of weight for your weight training program switch to a higher intensity training protocol (and vice-versa). The key is to change- keep your weight training program or weight loss program dynamic to experience continuous progress and avoiding training plateaus. The way in which you manipulate your exercise program over time should not be arbitrary however, check out our weight training program design article for a more detailed approach to keeping things productive with your weight training program.