Find out why your training routine is not working for you

What’s wrong with these two words when it comes to muscle building: “Training Routine”? Can you guess?

The answer is that when it comes to muscle building, the word “routine” is the last thing you want to be using! Routines are what makes building muscles so hard.

Real progress in the gym happens when you change the so-called routine. Sure, you start going to the gym and you have to have something to go on. The best thing to call this is an “exercise guide”. Call it a guide, not a routine. The moment it becomes a routine is the moment it will stop working for you.

Let’s take an example. Let’s say you do chest, triceps and shoulders on a Monday. So you go in the gym, the routine is bench press, 3 x 8 reps, then maybe triceps pushdown 3 x 8 reps, then maybe shoulder press 3 x 8 reps. It is a fact that by the time you get to the shoulder press, you will have less strength and you will push less. Perhaps your shoulders are not as developed if you have been following this “routine”.

An easy fix is to swap things round. Next Monday, go in and start with the Shoulder Press. You may not have wanted to do this as you may have placed more emphasis on getting a bigger chest and bigger triceps. Get this idea out of your head. You need a balanced body and you need to constantly do more weights and intensity on each and every exercise. Following a routine does not allow for this.

If you want real progress in the gym and you want to walk out of there feeling pumped and like you have really grown, then you need to constantly change things around. Start with triceps one day, then chest, then shoulders, then different exercises for each and so on. Do a split routine so each body part is rested for at least 5 days but on the actual training days, shift things around so each week you lift more.

Here’s a quick example over 2 weeks:

WEEK ONE

Monday: Chest, Triceps Shoulders

Start in the following order:

Bench Press

Inclined Bench Press

Triceps Pushdown

Skull Crushers

Shoulder Press

Wednesday: Back, Biceps

Start in the following order:

Barbell Rows

Lat Pulldowns

Deadlift

Dumbbell Bicep Curls

WEEK TWO

Monday: Chest, Triceps, Shoulders

Start in the following order:

Shoulder Press

Triceps Pushdown

Inclined Bench Press

Skull Crushers

Bench Press

Wednesday: Back and Biceps

Start in the following order:

Dumbbell Bicep Curls

Barbell Bicep Curls

Deadlift

Lat Pulldowns

Barbell Rows

There is only one routine: that you go to the gym. Once inside the gym, there is no routine.