Is Experience The Best Teacher?
Experience is the best teacher. I believe this statement is a partial truth. Experience can definitely be one of the best teachers if you carefully evaluate your experiences. Many people simply repeat the same experience over and over again without learning anything from those experiences. It is likely that there will come a point in which the only way to learn from your experience is to change what you do in order to compare it with previous experiences. How does this apply to weight training?
Repeating The Same Experience
Some lifters go to a gym and have a trainer or fitness instructor show them a workout. Specific exercises are prescribed and they are to be done with a specific amount of weight, sets and reps. Usually a person knows that they should increase the weights when they become easier to lift, but some people are perfectly content to do the same exercises for the same amount of sets and reps for the rest of their lives if they continue to lift that long. If the same person keeps repeating the same workout for the next 20 years, he could honestly say that he has had 20 years of weight training experience. However, if he simply repeats the same workout experience for 20 years, he doesn’t really have any more experience after 20 years than he has after one year, he has simply repeated the same experience. Can this lifter honestly say that experience is the best teacher?
Try Different Types of Training
Another lifter may stick with a specified workout for a training block of 8 to 12 weeks and then switch to a different workout the next block of 8 to 12 weeks. If he tries out a new type of training every 8 to 12 weeks, or he tries a variation or adjustment to a type of training that he has already done, he will have tried at least 80 training variations over the course of 20 years. This lifter is going to have more experience to learn from than the first lifter who kept repeating the same thing over and over again for 20 years. Both lifters can say they have 20 years of training experience, but the second lifter will be far more experienced than the first. Ask yourself how long you have been training and then ask yourself how much experience you have gained from the amount of training you have done.
If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix it
Even though trying out new training methods will give you more experience to learn from, senseless change is not helpful. If what you are doing is working, it makes sense to keep doing it. One of my bosses built a huge gymnastics business in Texas. When evaluating whether any changes needed to be made to make the most of his gym enrollment, he would often say, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” In other words, don’t change what’s working; keep doing what is working as long as it keeps working. My Jr. High football coach told me the same thing when I was calling plays as a quarterback. If a play, a strategy, or a sequence of plays keeps working, keep doing it until it stops working. If what you are doing isn’t working, try something different. This same mindset works for weight training. Do you have a training strategy that works? If so, keep doing it. If it isn’t working, try something else.
I believe the best beginning strategy is simply to find a basic workout that delivers results. As long as it keeps working, keep doing it. If it stops working, start changing. If you make changes, think about making them in a systematic manner.
Random Change vs. Systematic Change
If you reach the point where you need to make a change or an adjustment to your training, it is generally a good idea to make gradual systematic changes in a step by step fashion so that you can evaluate how each step affected your training. For example, if you want to increase your training volume, try increasing by one set per muscle group every two or three weeks for the next eight to twelve weeks. This will give you time to evaluate how your body responds each time you add on another set. In contrast, if you add 6 sets to your very next workout, and then drop back to just one high intensity set in the workout after that, and go wild with change by trying a whole new method of training every other workout, it will be very difficult to evaluate how your body is responding to each type of training.
Change is good when it is necessary and is done in a systematic fashion because systematic changes makes it easier to evaluate your experience. When you can interpret your experiences correctly, you can start to zero in on what works and what doesn’t so that you can hold on to what works and stop doing what doesn’t. If your changes are too big and occur too often, you will be left in a haze of confusion when it comes to interpreting your results. You will have a lot of experience, but the pieces of the training puzzle will be so random that you will never be able to fit them together in a meaningful way.
Periodization
If you can find more than one workout that works well, you have the option of putting the workouts together in a sequence of workouts to see if they work better in a sequence than they do individually. This is when lifters start to put the pieces together to formulate periodization plans in which workouts build upon each other to produce a synergistic effect that leads to a superior result at the end of the sequence of workouts.
It Takes Time to Optimize a Single Result Producing Workout
Some lifters have found a way to make systematic change work. Others have found a way to tap into a strategy that has very little change, yet they are able to apply it in a progressive way that works. The 6 – 15 Workout on the homepage of this website is an example of a workout that I like because I can repeat it again and again and it will keep working if I dial into the right amount of sets, intensity, and frequency in order to acclimate to the load as much as possible before increasing the weights. But here’s the thing, it took time and trial and error for me to gain enough experience to figure out the right amount of sets, the right amount of intensity, and the right frequency to get the best results.
If you prefer more change within your workout, know that there are lifters who have found tremendous success from using various periodization strategies such as linear periodization, daily undulating periodization, The Texas Method, or The Westside Method of training. If you try these methods, you will gain more experience and be able to choose which experience proved to be most successful.
The bottom line is that if you keep doing the same thing even though it stops working, you will end up being a lifter who has ten to twenty years of the same experience instead of a lifter who has ten to twenty years of many experiences that help you to find out what works best for your individual physiology.
My suggestion is to start with basic training methods that have proven time and time again to be successful for many lifters. Methods such as 5 sets of 5 reps, 3 sets of 5 reps, or pyramiding up in weight and intensity over the course of four sets by doing 10 reps, 8 reps, 6 reps, and 5 reps. Do this for one or two basic exercises for each muscle group. No matter what program you try, it will eventually stop producing results. When this happens, start by making small adjustments to training factors such as the exercises you perform, the number of sets, the number of reps, the amount of weight, or the training frequency. As you make changes and learn from your experience, you will eventually start to see patterns in terms of which exercises work best, along with the best intensity, and the best amount of sets, reps, and frequency for your own physiology. Stick with what works, throw out what doesn’t work, and allow results to be your primary guide.
Don’t let your experience go to waste with mindless training. Design your experiences so that you can learn from them and derive the greatest benefit from them. Best of training to you.