Fact or Myth: You need to switch up your reps and weights every ____ weeks

I've been doing a lot of reading of old threads here and various online articles and there are arguments both ways for doing "light" days with higher reps every so often. Some say every few weeks, some say every 8 weeks. I really don't know what to believe.

Here's the million dollar question: is this NECESSARY, or is it all subjective? I mean, I have no problem doing lighter weight with more reps once through my cycle every blue moon, but if it's not doing anything for me, what's the point? I know some will say it depends on the person, etc, but I want to know what you guys do. What are your honest opinions on this subject?

Right now I try my hardest to lift until failure (until I can't possibly do another rep) for 2 sets, of 8-12. Once I can do 2 sets of at least 10, I bump the weight. I'm extremely skeptical of doing, say, 2 sets of 20 with lighter weight.

Flame away.

 

Fact or Myth: You need to switch up your reps and weights every ____ weeks

I am a huge believer in Muscle confusion! Your body adapts very quickly to doing the same movements over and over. I follow a routine that changes things up every 30 days and have gotten awesome results! There are no more plateau effects and it keeps my routines exciting and productive.

 

Fact or Myth: You need to switch up your reps and weights every ____ weeks

It's total BS.

For the most part, for most people, so is going to failure.

 

Fact or Myth: You need to switch up your reps and weights every ____ weeks

Please explain.

 

Fact or Myth: You need to switch up your reps and weights every ____ weeks

"Muscle Confusion" is a nice marketing strategy. I hope that my muscles are confused by the increased weight that I load on the bar each month. I hope that they meet at a conference table and say "WTF is this guy doing to us?!?!"

Regulars around here refer to "Program ADD". A good weight training program will incorporate differing rep schemes within it's system making a complete program overhaul unneeded.

How could there possibly be any plateauing effects when you are changing to different movements so often. I could make gains on any new lift if its new to me because the coordination patterns are new as well.

A better question is how could you possibly gauge strength progress when you abandon movements so frequently?????????

 

Fact or Myth: You need to switch up your reps and weights every ____ weeks

Not at all necessary.

For the majority of trainees, you're better off focusing on progressing your weights from week to week. As for the body "adapting" to lifts....DUH. That's the whole point. Muscles adapt to workload by getting larger and stronger. Add more weight, they continue to adapt. The only time to "change things up" is when a lift stalls out for a period of time, or if your goals change.

Doing a "light" workout for de-loading purposes is another story.

 

Fact or Myth: You need to switch up your reps and weights every ____ weeks

You don't at all need to*, and - generally speaking - it's farking stoopid, respectively.

* And it's likely to be work against serious strength gains.

 

Fact or Myth: You need to switch up your reps and weights every ____ weeks

FACT
if you wanna look like this then take my advice
change it up all the time
dame routines are tedious and boring

 

Fact or Myth: You need to switch up your reps and weights every ____ weeks

Keep key lifts the same

Different rep and set layouts are fine - but change it too often and it can be hard to tell if you are really progressing or not.

Change accessory exercises around when you want. A strength athlete would do this to work on weak points. No doubt there is a similar reason to do it in BBing.

 

Fact or Myth: You need to switch up your reps and weights every ____ weeks

I dont know that u "have" to change up ur rep sets very often, but going lighter once in awhile really helps me out.. it gives my joints a little break from pounding heavy weights all the time. So I have a 1 weak delaod once a month..then back to heavy for 3 weeks..the break feels good brah.