Unfortunately, some trainers, and especially group training facilities, provide workouts that are more enjoyable (e.g., high-energy, fast-paced, good community, etc.) but often not very intelligent because they’re often full of random and redundant exercises put together in thoughtless manner. For example, making people run, thus getting them fatigued, then asking them to do box jumps, which is a recipe for becoming the latest gym fail video or worse.
On the flipside, many thoughtful trainers provide workouts that are more intelligent but often not very enjoyable because they’re monotonous.
To easily demonstrate why both of these are a problem, I created a chart (see Figure 1 below), which I call the “Good, Bad, Happy or Sad Programming Matrix.”
Intelligent programs that don’t make people happy (because they find the training boring) is a recipe for driving people away. And, bad programming that makes people happy (because they find the workouts challenging, exciting, etc.) is a recipe to get people banged up.
We need good (intelligent) programming to maximize safety and effectiveness. And, we need (enjoyable) programs that make people happy to maximize adherence and effort.
The Consistency Conundrum
When talking about program design, it’s pretty common for trainers to agree that consistency is what delivers results. However, there’s less certainty about what, specifically, needs to be consistent.
Is it the consistency of the EXERCISES or just the consistency of EXERCISING?
The truth is that it’s the latter of the two because building muscle or increasing general fitness is more directly tied to training volume, intensity and staying consistent with your works. Your muscles don’t know if you’re using a barbell or a dumbbell, they simply feel the force you’re putting across the joints. And that’s good news because it means that adding some regular exercise variety to your clients’ programs can still give them what they want without sacrificing their results. And, this is exactly what I show you how to do in my Practical Program Design Mastery online course.
How to Ensure Your Programs Are Enjoyable and Effective
Most clients want to build some muscle and often have specific areas of their body (e.g., glutes, arms, etc.) they’re looking to focus on developing.
All you need to do is target the desired areas with exercises that fit the client’s current ability and include the appropriate amount of volume, which research shows is 12-20 sets per muscle per week.
You see, research shows that lifting a lighter load to failure produces gains in muscle size similar to that produced by lifting a heavy load to failure. So, there's no magical rep range for maximizing muscle size; therefore, you can incorporate both heavy-load and low-rep sets (1-5 reps) along with medium-load and high-rep (15-20-plus reps) sets if you'd like. It really doesn’t matter which rep range(s) you prefer as long as you get close to failure on each working set.
There's also a dose-response to gains in muscle size and strength, which means that increasing muscle hypertrophy is mainly about training volume. This involves dedicating more total sets/reps and training days to your weaker, less-developed areas, and less overall volume to your more well-developed muscle groups. So, you may only program 2-8 sets per muscle per week on the areas of your client’s body they’re less interested in developing.
As long as you focus on training volume, you don't have to stay consistent with the exercises you use if you're looking to increase hypertrophy. This is demonstrated in a 12-week study comparing constant intensity and constant exercise, constant intensity and varied exercise, varied intensity and constant exercise, and varied intensity and varied exercise. The study found that muscle hypertrophy is similar regardless of the training intensity and exercise variation.
Interestingly, this same study also found that constant intensity and varied exercise is more efficient to produce strength gains for physically active individuals. So, you can certainly improve your strength regularly while varying exercises. However, to gauge progress, you'll still need some consistent exercises to do either every week or every month or so.
Additionally, there's another study on resistance-trained men that compares the effects of a traditional resistance training program (fixed exercises and rep ranges) to a program where exercises and reps were randomized on a session-by-session basis on markers of muscular adaptations and intrinsic motivation.
While both programs (fixed and randomized) elicited similar improvements in muscular adaptations, it was varying exercise selection that had a positive effect on enhancing motivation to train.
Exercise Variety vs. Randomness
Of course, if your goal is to participate in powerlifting, Olympic lifting or strongman, you certainly need to be consistent with the lifts you must perform in competition. Those require mastery.
But what about the rest of us who are in the gym for athletic performance, muscle growth and general fitness; the above research demonstrates that you can absolutely make continued progress while varying the exercises.
That said, there’s a big difference between choosing exercises at random based on what you saw on social media that day and choosing exercises that specifically focus on developing the areas your client is most interested in while ensuring they’re able to perform the exercise with good technique and without pain.
Nick Tumminello is known as the "Trainer of Trainers." He has been a trainer for over 20 years working NFL and MMA athletes, bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts. Nick is the 2016 NSCA Personal Trainer of the Year, the editor-in-chief of the NSCA’s PTQ journal, and he has authored four books, including the best-selling Strength Training for Fat Loss.
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