Repeating the Same Exercise

[Paintanker]

I read somewhere that if you repeat the same exercise, your body becomes accustomed to it and it therefore becomes less effective. For example, if you benchpress every other day for a year, after a while it will stop being an effective work out to build muscle there.

Is that true? If so, then it seems like the routines posted in the stickies here won't really work, at least, for long.

[ulsak]

if you benchpress the same weight it won't happen many changes, besides you get at good work out. You need to add weight with a decent progression system. That's about it.
Also, you need to hit other muscle groups by applying the same procedure.
Have you read ALL the info on each routine? They should contain what I wrote: a progression scheme.

[ironwill2008]

I read somewhere that if you repeat the same exercise, your body becomes accustomed to it and it therefore becomes less effective. For example, if you benchpress every other day for a year, after a while it will stop being an effective work out to build muscle there.

Is that true? If so, then it seems like the routines posted in the stickies here won't really work, at least, for long.

Who Bench Presses "every other day, for a year?"

What routine posted in the stickies recommends this?

[ButcherPLer]

What you are refering to is called accomadation and it involves more than just exercise variation, it also involves frequency, intensity and volume.

[Paintanker]

Who Bench Presses "every other day, for a year?"

What routine posted in the stickies recommends this?

No routine posted in the stickies recommends this. I was just giving an example of what I meant by repeating the same exercise. The beginner routine, for example, lasts 5 weeks. But after those 5 weeks, am I supposed to find another routine to vary the exercises, or is the increasing intensity and varying # of reps adequate?

[jgreystoke]

Oh bollocks.

I read somewhere that if you repeat the same exercise, your body becomes accustomed to it and it therefore becomes less effective. For example, if you benchpress every other day for a year, after a while it will stop being an effective work out to build muscle there.

Is that true? If so, then it seems like the routines posted in the stickies here won't really work, at least, for long.

What you read was written by someone who never bothered to get strong, or who juiced and didn't quite understand how the hell they got bigger and stronger on random stuff.

Say you stiff leg deadlift the empty bar(45lbs) for 10 reps today. If you do that a couple times a week for the next year or two.....WITH THE FCKING EMPTY BAR.....there is no earthly reason why your back and hams would get strong. Switching to another exercise that targets the same area, like Goodmornings, won't make much difference if you DON'T INCREASE THE WEIGHT REGULARLY until you are at least respectably strong.

If you added five pounds next week, and the week after and averaged a 20lb increase every month for a year, allowing for a couple weeks off, you'd be doing stiff leg dead with .....

.....295lbs x 10 reps!

Don't you think that would make a huge difference to your back strength, and your hams, etc?

And if you made similar progress in the squat don't you think that your quads would be much bigger and stronger?

And if you made proportional progress in rows, don't you think that your upper back would be vastly better?

You'd obviously have to do warmup sets before your 295s for squat or stiff leg dead, so you'd be doing both more volume and VASTLY MORE WEIGHT.

A sensible person would be doing something like:

45(bar) x 10
75 x 5
105 x 3
135 x 2
165 x 1
185 x 1
205 x 1
225 x 1
255 x 1
275 x 1
295 x 10

And might profit by adding another workset or two like:

275 x 10
255 x 10

If they really wanted more size they might add another couple sets:

235 x 10
225 x 10

In that case, they'd be doing

vastly more weight,

vastly more volume(sets x reps added up, usually counted above a certain percent of max, or just the worksets x reps),

and vastly more tonnage(reps x sets x weight added up to get the total iron moved).

They probably won't look like the weakling they were when they started off. But only if they apply any rational program based on:

1. Big exercises like squat, dead, press, bench, power clean, row, curl.

2. Progressive training, ie ADDING WEIGHT TO THE BAR REGULARLY on any rational schedule.

3. For any rational rep range.

4. While on any rational diet that has them eating enough protein and calorie surplus to grow muscle.


Learn enough about this stuff by reading the stickies. When you know enough, you'll have enough confidence to throw retarded advice(like you mentioned) into the trash.

Lift WELL and prosper.

[NotoriousMrB]

No routine posted in the stickies recommends this. I was just giving an example of what I meant by repeating the same exercise. The beginner routine, for example, lasts 5 weeks. But after those 5 weeks, am I supposed to find another routine to vary the exercises, or is the increasing intensity and varying # of reps adequate?

Eh, I suspect you're referring to All Pros ^^. It doesn't "last" 5 weeks, but is composed of 5-week cycles. And in the "M-W-F" sense of things, it does have you benching every other day, but with variable intensity, variable reps over time, so you're fine OP. Run it for as many cycles as you can progress.

[Diddii]

your body might get used to the weight lifted, but if your increasing the weight your body won't get accustomed to the move.
Think of it like this, if you would 135lbs bench press every other day for a year... your body might get used to the weight and it would seem easy doing reps with the weight. That doesnt mean your body will be able to bench 225lbs just because your body is accustomed to the movement.