There is a truism in the health and fitness industry that progress comes with consistency – no matter what the goal. If you want to be stronger, you have to lift heavy stuff consistently. If you want to be fitter, you have to do some form of cardiovascular work consistently. If you want to be leaner, you have to eat fewer calories consistently. You get the idea.

However, in this modern world we are often met with the idea of change. “You must change things up frequently, or else your muscle memory will get bored and no change will happen!” 

Uh huh…

Never mind the bad science behind that statement; more likely some influencer wants to impress you with their latest weird and wacky exercise routine that involves standing one-legged on a Swiss ball, while juggling with dumbbells in a freezer.

While there is some truth in the idea behind changing things every so often to give your musculature a new stimulus to adapt to, that change doesn’t have to be wholesale where everything is changed all at once.

Changes can be as simple as increasing the intensity of an exercise – which by the way might be adding a few extra grams in weight or adding an extra rep here and there.

But in our world today, there are those who scream in our social media feeds that we have to change exercise routines frequently. I would disagree with that sentiment, and make changes when they are required.

Of course that requirement might be to stop the mental boredom of repeating a certain exercise routine ad infinitum, but the methodology of the routine and the way we are targeting certain muscle groups will not change. This is because we are working towards your goal, and the way there involves working specifics, not changing everything every time you work out.

That would be like trying to drive to a specific destination, while changing course and vehicle every few minutes. You might get there in the end, but if you ever do it will take a lot longer than it should have done.

Your hamstrings won’t care if they are doing dumbbell deadlifts or barbell deadlifts or cable pull throughs or Swiss ball hamstring curls or any other exercise that targets them and their surrounding musculature. What they will adapt to is the number of times they are worked and the intensity of that work. 

The same applies to any muscle or groups of muscles. It also applies to every part of your physiology be that musculature, cardiovascular, body composition or anything else. Being consistent with your approach will garner you results far faster than being inconsistent.

If you are confused by all the noise coming from the internet with regard to health and fitness, and would like a sensible conversation to cut through that noise, please do get in touch. I would love to help you hit your goals.