Before You Switch Workouts, Read This.

I had someone ask me the other day if it was time to switch programs.  I asked why.  “I don’t know, I just feel like my body has gotten used to it” they said.

We hear some version of that a lot and about 90% of the time, their body hasn’t adapted…their brain has.  Somewhere along the way, we’ve convinced ourselves that if a workout starts feeling familiar, it must have stopped working.  If we know what’s coming on Tuesday, it’s gotta be time for a new program.  If we’re not sore after every workout, we’ve plateaued. And if we aren’t learning some new exercise we’ve never seen before, we must not be making progress.

None of those things are necessarily true.

I think we can blame the fitness industry for at least part of this.  Every other week there’s a new fitness trend that’s apparently going to change everything.  Like the celery juice thing, the butter in the coffee thing, the waist trainer thing…we’re constantly being told that the answer is whatever we haven’t tried yet.  The next program, challenge, or supplement…the next “secret” that somehow everybody missed until this week.  After a while, you start believing progress only happens when you’re doing something new.

But that’s not how progress works.

Imagine taking piano lessons for six weeks and deciding pianos don’t work anymore.  Or learning Spanish to order tacos and concluding you’ve pretty much mastered the language.

Nobody thinks that way.

Yet people do it with fitness all the time.  They finally start lifting consistently.  Their clothes fit differently.  Their confidence starts growing.  Then they decide they need to change everything.  Not because the program stopped working, but because it stopped feeling new.  Those aren’t the same thing.

Now, let’s make an important distinction because these two things get confused all the time. Progression and program hopping are not the same thing.  A good program should absolutely evolve.  If you’re lifting the same weight, moving the same way, and never challenging yourself beyond where you started, eventually you’ve outgrown it.  That’s when it’s time to increase the challenge, lift heavier, improve your technique, add complexity or raise the standard.

That’s progression.

Program hopping is different. It’s more like:  “I don’t know…I just wanted to do something different.”

One is based on growth and the other is based on boredom.

At GRIT, we don’t change our programming because we think your muscles got tired of goblet squats.  We change it because you’ve earned the next step.  There’s a big difference between progressing an exercise and abandoning it.

One builds strength and the other just keeps you “entertained.”

One of my favorite phrases people use is, "I think I've plateaued."  Maybe….but maybe not.  Sometimes “I’ve plateaued” actually means:  “I’ve skipped the gym a couple times this week.” Or…”I’ve been eyeballing my protein instead of eating enough.”  Or maybe you’ve just reached the point where progress isn’t happening at beginner speed anymore….that’s normal.

When you’re new, almost everything works.  Then your body expects a little more from you.  Progress slows down…not because it’s over, but because you’ve moved beyond the honeymoon phase.  That’s actually a good thing.  It means you’ve stuck with something long enough to get past the easy wins.

The people who get the best Long-term results attest usually the people chasing the newest workout.

They’re the people who stop chasing altogether.

They find a good program, they trust it, and they give it enough time to actually work.  Not for six weeks. For months. Years even.  They’re not perfect.  They miss workouts and go on vacations.  They eat birthday cake and have stressful weeks where life gets in the way.

The difference is they don’t treat every interruption like they have to start all over.  They just pick up where they left off.  That’s probably why we’ve never been huge fans of six-week challenges as the solution.

Don’t misunderstand, challenges can be incredibly helpful.  If someone needs accountability, structure or simply a reason to get started, a challenge can be exactly what they need.

The problem is when the finish line becomes the goal.  Because real fitness starts after the challenge ends.  When the excitement wears off and you’re left with a choice to either keep showing up or start searching for the next thing.

That’s where habits are built.  Not during the challenge.  After it.

The irony is that most people don’t need a new program.  They need more confidence in the one they’re already following.

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do isn’t changing your workout.  It’s giving it another month, eight weeks, a year.

Long enough to find out what happens if you stop chasing novelty and start chasing consistency instead.

Because the secret isn’t finding the perfect program.

It’s sticking with a good one long enough to let it do its job.