Avoid stagnation: how often, what and how to change in the concept of training

Our body is basically hedonistic and always strives for comfort and balance. If asked, the fewer adjustments to make - the better!

Continuous stimulation

When we train, we are actually pushing the body to respond to stimulation, just by doing something that is not in nature - by adapting. This adjustment may include improving the efficiency of the CNS, strengthening the tendons, ligaments and muscles, increasing the muscle cross section, or a combination of all of the above.

If we continually expose the body to adequate training (stimulation), it will eventually become more powerful, bigger and literally "upgrade" to its more effective version. This is exactly what we aim for - supercompensation! However, each of us has experienced what it means to reach a plateau, ie a stall in progress, to reach the so-called. sticking points.

What to do in this case, what to change in training, and what to leave the same is one of the constant puzzles that athletes and coaches struggle with on a daily basis. The situation is even more complicated when we consider that there are three basic constitutional types (and even more common are combinations thereof).

Some basic logical principles of what to do in such a case exist, however, again, each practitioner is a case for himself and should be approached accordingly.

Manipulations of training to avoid stagnation

To paraphrase our bodybuilder D. Vrbančić: “If you go to the gym and you are all the same and the same, it is time to change something. Stop going to the gym! ”In order not to give up and give up so easily, below we will consider in which case and in what ways we can manipulate training to overcome the plateau and continue to make progress.

Before any of us accuse a training regimen of not acting, we need to ask ourselves whether the training (and recovery) regimen in question meets the basic prerequisites for effectiveness, which are:

• Training should be stimulating enough to get the body out of homeostasis and adapt to the stimulus we have exposed it to.
• Recovery should be adequate in order for supercompensation to occur, otherwise it will fail (and with it progress).
• It should be trained often enough to maintain continuity in the training-recovery relationship.

We did a quality, stimulating workout and recovered well enough. Conditions for supercompensation have been created. Our job is done there, right? Wrong! This has only won the battle, but we must continue to continually reap the benefits of supercompensation to constantly elevate the bar of homeostasis to new heights.


This recapitulation of the basic physiological principles that lead to progress was necessary because too many who start following a particular program and for a short time quit, scattering the same amount of criticism at the expense of its effectiveness, without any self-criticism.

The constant need for changes in training

However, the harsh truth is that every single and most intelligent training program we have conducted most consistently will stop producing results at some point. In other words, the body will no longer see the need for adaptation with that program, that is, the program ceases to be a challenge.

This is also the number one reason why we need to change something in training mode. In addition, the need for change also arises when the goal changes. Let's say our goal was to increase strength, and now our primary hypertrophy or fat burning, it is clear that we need to change our training.

The next reason (truth to will not be justified for a serious trainer who has a clearly defined goal) is saturation with a certain way of training in terms of boredom.

Since training that results in a highly motivating effect on the practitioner, I consider "boredom" a valid reason for changing it.


Further, a valid reason for changing training is some "force majeure" that makes us unable to maintain continuity in the current training mode. The obvious reason is injury to some part of the locomotor system.

How or what to change in training?

As is usually the case, the answer to that question depends on many factors. We can change the choice of exercises, the intensity, the number of exercises in training, the number of series and the duration of breaks between them, the number of repetitions in a series, the pace of performance, etc. etc…

Most often, however, we will be able to retain the basic structure (skeleton) of the training without making some minor modifications.

Eg. if we were doing oblique thrust with a bar, we would now work with dumbbells; the standing biceps bar joint can be replaced by a dumbbell bar joint; sitting rowing can be replaced by rowing with a T-bar or rowing in an incline; we will perform the exercise bilaterally unilaterally etc.

We can potentially benefit greatly by varying the number of repetitions in training and at the same time the intensity. Namely, it has been proven that bodybuilders often have more developed type IIa fibers, while lifters (higher intensity and fewer reps) have more developed type IIb fibers, so it is logical that by alternating protocols with larger and fewer reps, we will gain more muscle mass as a result.

A special story is the variation in tempo, whose change we can achieve a whole new atmosphere of training and move the body out of the stagnation it has fallen into.

Here we are actually talking about varying the amount of time a muscle spends under load. Eg. If we perform a series of squats of 10 repetitions with X kg so that each phase (eccentric and concentric) lasts for 1 second, the total time spent under load is 20 seconds.


Conversely, if we perform the same exercise with the same load so that each phase lasts for 6 seconds, the time under load will be 120 seconds, which is a big difference. A slower pace has been shown to achieve greater protein synthesis during recovery and therefore greater muscle mass gain. In contrast, the ballistic tempo will be beneficial to the athletes of strength as they thus strengthen the neural component and force the body to adapt in this direction.

Finally, here are some changes that will certainly enhance your training:

• increase in intensity - the choice of methods that we can achieve is really big: drop series, superpowers, giant sets, negative reps, rest-pause…
• changing the days we work for certain muscle groups (making sure that each muscle is given enough rest time because small muscles such as the biceps and triceps also participate as aids in back or chest training)
• combination of basic and isolation exercise in the superpowers (eg squat-extension, bench press with dumbbells, etc.)
• changing the order of exercises - it would be correct to perform basic (multi-joint) exercise before isolation, however, the so-called. a pre-exhaust technique where the order of the exercises is reversed.