Do you like to train to failure and beyond? Do you often go for a one rep max? Are you on a mission to break your previous best in every workout? All of these methods produce a high amount of training stress. I believe the more stressful the training, the more training variety is needed.
High Stress Training
The more stressful your training is, the more your body is likely to shut down any strength gains in response to repeating the same training over and over again. Any time your body is over-stressed in the same way on a repeated basis, it leads to the pattern that kills progress. What is the pattern that kills progress? It occurs when your body keeps trying to accomplish its primary goal of making it easier for you to lift weights by becoming stronger, but the workouts immediately get harder (with added weight and reps) instead of easier. Your body sees no benefit to gaining strength if it makes workouts harder instead of easier.
One way to deal with this is to constantly change the workout stress. If you use heavy weight in one workout and lighter weights in a different workout, the risk of overtaxing your body by using the same workout stress too often decreases. This is one reason why lifters and coaches recommend changing the amount of weight, the amount of sets, the amount of reps, and the exercises that are used. They especially recommend this if they are using max training loads and pushing close to failure.
Periodization
You can find endless periodization methods that incorporate strategic changes in training over time. The conjugate method is an example of constant changes in load, band tension, exercises, and range of motion. It has worked fabulously for many lifters; and is especially necessary for those who try for a new one rep max every week. You can’t stress your body with the exact same type of maximum load again and again and hope to keep gaining strength.
Muscle Confusion
Constant variety is often referred to as muscle confusion in bodybuilding circles. The term implies that you can confuse your body into growth. I don’t personally believe that your body gets stronger as a result of confusion. Your body isn’t confused at all about gaining strength, it knows exactly why it wants to gain strength. In fact if you confuse your body with too many non-specific stresses, it doesn’t know what you are asking it to do and does nothing in regard to gaining strength. With the right kind of specificity, you can do away with the concept of muscle confusion.
Specificity
The kind of specificity I’m referring to is a specific type of training stress aimed at a specific energy system, with a specific amount of training stress. If you know the specifics, you can set your body up to want to gain strength. Specificity for strength training refers to using light weights for explosive training, using the marker rep with medium heavy weights, and also doing some single rep training with heavy weights that allow a smooth continuous lifting motion without grinding. This is done as long a muscle group is at full strength, but no longer than that.
If you learn the specifics, you can systematically apply them day in and day out in a consistent manner without trying to confuse your muscles with endless variations. The correct specifics will allow a high degree of consistency from one workout to the next in a manner that will make gaining strength the best choice for your body, so that’s exactly what it will do. For more on specificity, I recommend the article, “One Choice or Multiple Choice Workout Results?” After decades of training, I see specificity as a colossal key to long term training success, but I get the impression that most lifters do not understand it or how to apply it correctly.
If you love training super hard, I recommend tons of variety to keep from getting stuck. However, if you know the specifics in regard to the types and amount of training stresses to be applied, then I recommend the right kind of variety within a workout combined with consistency from one workout to the next. System 4 is an example of this. Best of training to you.