How long are you usually suppose to stick with one routine before you change it up? 4-6 weeks?
You can change the exercises you do in your routine anywhere between 1 week and 6 weeks…possibly more. You could conceivably do the same type of routine (Westside, Bodybuilding-Split, Full Body, whatever) for your entire training carrier as long as you changed the exercises, reps, and sets within that routine.
If you stick with the same stuff too long you’ll progress slowly and plateau.
If you change around too much you’ll never know what’s working and you’ll never become proficient enough at the workouts your doing to get any gains since the workouts are always changing.
There’s no absolute guidelines but personally I don’t do the same exercises for more than 4 weeks. My “program” has constantly evolved for the past 2 years but its pretty much been an upper-lower split for all that time.
As long as you think you couldn’t do any better with another routine.
You need to be a bit more specific though. what do you mean by routine? the same workout. a couple different workouts throughout the week?
Typically I use microcyles 2-3 weeks. and then switch.
If something is working consistently for you then there is no need to change templates for a long long time.
i mean like, your weekly workout. how many weeks do you keep up with that. know what i mean?
Wouldn’t this depend a lot on your training experience?
i personally get bored very easily so i tend to switch very often(sometimes too often i think). however, i’ve never really plateaued for a long period of time and have always increased my strength. i base some of this on genetics, but most of it on switching routines/exercises/rep schemes.
until it stops working
is it ok to completely change a routine like every 4 weeks? I’ll use the names of some routines here on the site for an example. Waterbury Method for 4 weeks, The Art of Waterbury for 4 week, Lift fast Get Big for 4 weeks, so on and so forth…is 4 weeks long enough to do something like that?
Since you have stated no goals or training experience, I’ll assume you’re like all the other 170lb beginners. Follow the “Starting Strength” template for six months and start eating above maintenance levels.
You’ll find more people willing to discuss those T-Mag article routines in the Beginner and Bodybuilding sections.
[quote]howie424 wrote:
is it ok to completely change a routine like every 4 weeks? I’ll use the names of some routines here on the site for an example. Waterbury Method for 4 weeks, The Art of Waterbury for 4 week, Lift fast Get Big for 4 weeks, so on and so forth…is 4 weeks long enough to do something like that?[/quote]
If you are using premade programs, do them for however long the author defines! They made the program, they should know how long you should do it. I know that Waterbury’s TBT is two months long.
I would think that 6-8 weeks would be the minimum time to give a program to see what it does for you. That would be two to three mini-cycles for most programs.
The more correct answer is what other people have told you: if it’s working, keep doing it. If you don’t know if it’s working, you need to keep doing it.
Ideally you would stick to one program forever, only making small changes in between cycles or to keep healthy, but then again it would be called a template.
After some time all those small changes will amount to something completely different, it then becomes YOUR program/template/system/etc.
The short answer is: Until it stops working.
For example, if you get stuck at the same weight for several weeks and can’t manage to add even one pound, rep, or set, then it’s time to make some minor adjustments.
Generally I find that if you’re really stuck it’s more often a problem with your diet than your routine, there are few problems you can’t eat your way through.